Shortly after the railways were nationalized in 1948, the then newly formed British Railways Board (BRB) undertook a review of the locomotive stock which had been inherited from the independent “Big Four” railway companies. It soon became apparent that the entire stable of steam locomotives made up a huge variety of different class types, a large number of which were approaching or, in some cases, already expired.

From the start, the government-owned organization needed to cut costs as quickly as possible. Not an easy task with a war-torn railway. However, work began immediately and within its first year, BRB had hired renowned locomotive engineer Robert A Riddles, formerly of LMS, to take over responsibility for the Mechanical and Electrical Engineering department. Riddles was given the task of developing a new small range of new steam locomotive designs, intended to replace older pre-nationalisation locomotives.

Riddles settled on a course of action which was to use the best pre-nationalisation designs and incorporate the best qualities of each into his standardized locomotives, thus amalgamating the greatest engineering prowess of all the old railway companies. The first step towards creating the new designs was the ‘Locomotive Exchange Trials’. Riddles began his quest by selecting a number of express-type engines from each of the newly formed Regions and using them in “foreign” territory. As an example, the LMS locomotives operated over the South Region where there were no watering holes. To compensate for this, they married old four-axle War Department tenders with larger water tanks. These received LMS letters specifically for the occasion. Similarly, ex-Southern Region types used elsewhere were combined with ex-LMS tenders with water intakes. This provided important information for the design team on how suitable particular classes of locomotives were for certain sections of the line.

With the completion of the locomotive exchange trials, Riddles’ chief draftsmen went back to the drawing board and began formulating the first of the new “standardized” steam locomotives. Officially, these tests were intended to identify the best aspects of the four different approaches to locomotive design so that they could be used in the new BR standard designs. However, the methods used for the tests lacked any real scientific value and, given Riddles’ background and other political influences, it was almost predictable that the practice of LMS would be largely followed by the new standard designs, and by It is therefore not surprising that almost all of Riddles’ final products would closely resemble the designs pioneered by LMS, particularly those locomotives that were Stanier and Ivatt designs.

However, the trials were publicity for BR to show the useful new British railways unit. By 1950 the first of the new express locomotive designs had been completed at Derby and in the same year the British Transport Commission placed an order with Crewe Works for the construction of twenty-four of the type. What rolled out of Crewe on 2 January 1951 was a Pacific 4-6-2 locomotive that remarkably resembled the William Stanier-designed Coronation class of engines, also before the LMS. The imposing engine, finished in a plain black scheme with no cladding, was scheduled for a test run between Crewe and Carlisle on 11 January 1951, a dynamometer car being one of the train components it was to haul. After testing, which proved to be a promising start for the type, the locomotive, numbered 70000, was repainted in the much more familiar BR Brunswick Green and delivered to Marylebone Station on the penultimate day of January to be named. Issue 70,000 was appropriately named ‘Britannia’, after the female personification of the British Empire, and marked a very promising step forward for BR.

To commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the 1948 locomotive interchange trials, in 2008 Hornby Railways produced a limited edition model of a 4-6-2 West Country Class ‘Bude’ locomotive No 34006. This model represents the classic combination of a Bulleid from the South Pacific region with a Stanier Tender. For collectors, the Hornby R2685 West Country Class ‘Bude’ with Stanier Tender was only produced in a limited run from 2008 and each of the model trains came with a numbered Certificate of Authentication.