A total of 197 engines were built. 192 of them were sequentially numbered 3835–4026 for the Midland Railway. After nationalisation in 1948 British Railways added 40000 to their numbers so they became 43835–44026. Five engines were constructed by Armstrong Whitworth for the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway in 1922, numbered 57–61. They were absorbed into LMS stock in 1930, becoming 4557–4561.
Accidents and incidents
On 19 November 1926, locomotive No. 3980 was one of two hauling a freight train. One of the private owner wagons disintegrated, derailing the train at Parkgate and Rawmarsh, Yorkshire. A signal post was partly brought down, obstructing an adjacent line. The carriages of an express passenger train had their sides ripped open by the signal post. Eleven people were killed.[2]
On 6 March 1930, locomotive No. 4009 was hauling a ballast train that was in collision with a passenger train, hauled by Ex-LNWR Claughton Class4-6-0 No. 5971, at Langwathby station, Cumberland. The passenger train had departed from Culgaith against signals. Two people were killed and four were seriously injured.[3]
Withdrawal
The 197 engines in this class were withdrawn between 1954 and 1965 as follows:
Hornby introduced a OO gauge model of 3924 in 2022 to celebrate the film "Return of the Railway Children" which featured this locomotive. The model is in a variation of LMS unlined black.
Baxter, Bertram (1982). Baxter, David (ed.). British Locomotive Catalogue 1825–1923. Vol. 3A: Midland Railway and its constituent companies. Ashbourne, Derbyshire: Moorland Publishing Company. ISBN9780903485524.
Baxter, Bertram (1984). Baxter, David (ed.). British Locomotive Catalogue 1825–1923, Volume 4: Scottish and remaining English Companies in the LMS Group. Ashbourne, Derbyshire: Moorland Publishing Company.
Casserley, H. C. & Johnston, Stuart W. (1974) [1966]. Locomotives at the Grouping 3: London, Midland and Scottish Railway. Shepperton, Surrey: Ian Allan. ISBN0-7110-0554-0.
Earnshaw, Alan (1993). Trains in Trouble: Vol. 8. Penryn: Atlantic Books. ISBN0-906899-52-4.
Hall, Stanley (1990). The Railway Detectives. London: Ian Allan. ISBN0-7110-1929-0.