Britain’s National Railway Museum has a new star – a re-streamlined Stanier Pacific, ‘Duchess of Hamilton’. Built in 1938 in this form to spearhead the London Midland and Scottish Railway’s drive for a larger share of the lucrative London to Scotland market, this loco visited the New York World’s Fair and other cities in the USA in 1939, disguised as sister loco and class leader 6220 ‘Coronation’. Although its return to Britain was delayed by the outbreak of WWII, it did see wartime service in plain black livery, but was de-streamlined in 1946 - the world had changed, style was now secondary to function, and the streamlined casing made servicing and maintenance more difficult. After a further 17 years service, the loco was withdrawn from traffic in 1963, and initially preserved at a holiday camp, but saw almost two decades of main line running in de-streamlined form from 1980 on. Now just a static exhibit again, its reappearance as a streamliner is sure to provoke calls for a return to main line operation.
Not
just heritage schemes, not just commemorative schemes - this album is devoted to some of the world's most interesting paint schemes, past or present.
