A study of 46245’s 6’9” driving wheels and Walschaerts valve gear, gleaming in the midday sun. If only the photo was in colour, we’d be treated to her immaculate Crimson Lake livery! Stanier’s celebrated pacifics were the direct rival to Gresley’s. The Coronation class was a development on the earlier Princess Royal class and were built at Crewe Works between 1937 and 1948. 46245 was a member of a class totalling 38. They were the most powerful passenger steam engine to run in Britain, their 50 sqft of fire grate and superheated 250psi boiler packing out a mighty 40,000Ib of tractive effort. City of London was brought into traffic on 30th June 1943 under lot 150 and numbered 6245, originally sporting the streamlining favoured by her owners, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. The designer, Sir William A Stanier did not like the idea but conceded under persuasion; the graceful streamlined rival A4s were a hard act for the LMS to follow, especially in the wake of Mallard’s record breaking run for steam traction in July 1938, unbeaten to the present. However, by August 1947, difficulties with maintenance had led to the ineffectual and cumbersome streamlining being removed. At the same time, the distinctive smoke deflectors were added which so greatly enhanced their appearance and cured at a stroke the problems with drifting exhaust that had beleaguered those class members having already gone “under the knife”. By 1948 and nationalisation, she was renumbered 46245. Withdrawn on 30th September 1964 from her final home depot of Crewe North (5A), she was towed down to Cashmore’s scrapyard of Great Bridge. Sadly, there was no last minute reprieve for her and cutting up of this beautiful locomotive was completed by the new year. Fortunately for future generations she is survived by three sisters; 46229 “Duchess of Hamilton”, 46235 “City of Birmingham” and 46233 “Duchess of Sutherland”.

I drove this beast, back when I was too young to have a drivers license. It was just another piece of farm machinery, and children make good slaves. For fun, I learned how to shift with out using the clutch. The front transmission had 5 gears and the back one had 4. It was a little hard for my father to climb up in the engine compartment, so when the valves and lifter rods needed replaced, I did a lot of the wrench work to remove the heads and put them back on. This truck has dual rear wheels. When the gears on the rear axle turned into gravel in the bottom of the gear box, we opened it up and replaced the gears. My father almost lost his fingers doing this. The only thing that saved them, was that we were in the field on soft ground instead of the hard packed dirt in the yard. Since the cover plate must have been a couple hundred pounds we attached a chain to it and used the hoist on the box to lift it. The chain broke, and the cover plate landed on my father's hand. After driving to the hospital in town to get bandaged up, we completed the job.