Talk:London, Midland and Scottish Railway

Named Expresses

Some named expresses I can think of are:

• Devonian, which ran from Bradford (I think) to Bristol (and not to Devon!)
  • See this article where there is a splendid photo of a train on this service - and it was from Bradford, and it did run to Devon (seems little point in calling it the Devonian otherwise) Peter Shearan 13:46, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
• Palatine mentioned under Midland Main Line
• Peaks ditto
• Thames-Clyde Express. I'm not sure if this was named in LMS days. I believe it ran down the Erewash valley rather than through Derby
  • It certainly was! I have Alan Anderson's book (undated) which sets out the whole journey: St Pancras-Leicester-Sheffiel-Leeds-Settle-Carlisle-Glasgow St Enoch, 427 miles (683km in new money!)Peter Shearan 13:46, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
• Pines. This ran from Bournemouth on the old LSWR lines to Bath Green Park and joined the northbound LMS from Bristol at Mangotsfield. It went on through Birmingham to Manchester.
• Master Cutler I'm not sure if this was an LMS express, but a BR one

Perhaps someone would like to carry this on

The Master Cutler ran on the Great Central Railway, which became part of the LNER, not LMS. -- Tivedshambo (talk) 17:13, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

The Master Cutler was a GN and GC joint Pullman that ran from Sheffield Victoria to London Kings Cross via Retford. It only moved to ex-LMS metals after the run down of services from Sheffield Victoria in the 1960s. Also, the Pines was one of those trains that used to split repeatedly - during winter months it had portions that went to Leeds, Bradford (split at Birmingham and again at Sheffield) and Manchester, Liverpool (split at Crewe). During the summer they ran as completely separate trains due to the extra demand with the Pines being the Manchester train. BaseTurnComplete 10:16, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

There is the present day Master Cutler also the Robin Hood and the Midland Express run by Midland Mainline Chevin 09:47, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the Devonian ran to Paignton in the Summer. Certainly there were many "Summer Specials".

The Pines had a long and varied history. In 1958-9 I used to catch it at Bath Green Park and change to the Devonian at Gloucester for Derby. The only things that stayed the same were that it started in Bournemouth and ended at Manchester. There is a book about it Austin, S., (1998) Portrait of the Pines Express, Ian Allan Publishing.Chevin 17:27, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

There was also the Waverley which I believe ran from London via Corby and Manton Junction to Nottingham and Edinburgh. Chevin 09:47, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

There was a Thames-Forth express too, like the Clyde but to Edinburgh. I have a feeling that this went via Nottingham too.BaseTurnComplete 16:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Named trains (not just expresses?)

If you look at this article you will find a huge quantity of them. They cover all the railways of course, but this is better than trying to use one's memory ... Peter Shearan 13:46, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Isn't there a proposal somewhere for a page on named trains, or perhaps just a category?

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Chevin (talk • contribs) 08:30, 22 August 2006

Try Category:Named passenger trains of the United Kingdom... EdJogg 21:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, C J Allen produced a book called Titled Trains of Great Britain. It's referred to on the cross referenced page. Further information though follows.

The Thames Forth was named in 1927, but the name was never used after the war. The Waverley was the BR version. Both ran via the Waverley route north of Carlisle. They normally went via Nottingham and Trowell, rather than Leicester and Trent, but this was never something that was invariably consistent from one timetable to another, or even necessarily between up and down versions of the same working.

The West Coast mainline had quite a few named trains on it. I don't think the LNWR had any official names. Most names date from the LMS or BR periods. Apart from the Royal Scot, there was the Mid Day Scot, known unofficially by the LNWR as the Corridor, the Coronation Scot (streamlined), a Night Scot, the Irish Mail, the Comet, the Lakes Express the Merseyside Express etc etc. Post war the Coronation Scot was never reintroduced. For one thing, the LMS streamliners had their streamlining removed in the 1940s. However in the late 1950s before work started on electrification and everything slowed down, there was a flyer called the Caledonian worked by a Duchess with a limited rake of coaches.

There were also Club trains from Manchester, and named trains in Scotland, including at one time an Orcadian on the Far North line.

The Peak Express only existed before 1939. The Palatine was reintroduced in the 1950s, but applied to different workings. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was also a Midland Pullman, a sort of precursor of an HST that ran between St Pancras and Manchester. The set also did an intermediate run from St Pancras to Nottingham and back.

The Devonian ran for at least part of the year as far as Paignton which is in Devon. Browne-Windsor 14:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

London Midland?

Someone has added a note under the heading "Resurrection" suggesting the new company London Midland is a reincarnation of the LMS. I hardly think so but do others agree? Chevin (talk) 17:48, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes I agree with you. The LMS was an integrated railway that owned the track, stations, trains and staff. LM is merely a franchise to run train services. Perhaps the title should be Reuse of the name London Midland - if the text is considered worthy to remain.Pyrotec (talk) 17:56, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Well yes, but, even then, it it's only a small part of the LMS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chevin (talk • contribs) 09:25, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I entirely agree. "London Midland" has as much connection with the original LMS, or for that matter its constituents, as Great Western Radio, the Swindon and Wiltshire station, has with the real GWR. Browne-Windsor —Preceding comment was added at 07:50, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Discussion on format and push for GA status

Please note that there is an ongoing discussion on this article and articles on the other "Big Four" pre-nationalisation companies here. Contributions to the discussion are welcomed. ColourSarge (talk) 19:06, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

NOTE: Discussion has been archived here. -- EdJogg (talk) 13:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Well it has been a while since I posted the note above, and after a period away from Wikipedia I have returned and started work on re-formatting the article to permit future expansion through additional information and sub-sections. I have noted some recent editing activity on the page and have kept the information added by other editors (although I have in some instances moved it into sections I consider provide more appropriate homes). I welcome comments on what I have done so far, and any suggestions for future areas of research and ways in which the article could be developed, with the ultimate aim of achieving GA status. ColourSarge (talk) 02:05, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Update. So far I have put around 30 hours editing into updating and expanding several sections of the article, particularly formation, electrification, shipping and construction. Work has also gone into most other sub-sections of the article. I am currently in the process of a thorough re-write of the railway operations section, splitting this into passenger, freight and other operations, and hope to complete this within the next day or so. This will then be followed by further work on the sections dealing with non-railway interests and another pass over the traction and rolling stock section. Wanting to balance re-writing the whole article myself (together with whatever flaws and foibles accompany my particular editing style and experience) against my current motivation for editing the article, I have left a couple of days where I have undertaken only minor touch-ups, while waiting to see if there are any other editors out there working to push the article forwards. So far there doesn't seem to be anyone else doing any major work on the article, so I intend to carry on as outlined above.

If anyone has any comments on the work done so far I would love to hear them, as they may help me shape my editing of the article going forwards, both in terms of style and also content - I am keen to ensure the article retains balance and covers all relevant topics. So.....any feedback? ColourSarge (talk) 23:28, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Your efforts are not going un-noticed -- the number and size of edits has made me leave you to get on with it!! It is a huge subject, so getting the structure right will take time.

At present there is a gaping hole in the history, between Stanier and nationalisation! Although you do mention "war-damaged". Also, "Electrification" doesn't really fit within History -- might be better under Operations or Infrastructure or....

The tables are quite large and might benefit from moving to a sub-page (especially Shipping).

I've identified a number of minor (non-structural) corrections, off-line, so I'll try and sort them soon.

EdJogg (talk) 02:01, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks EdJogg, nice to know someone is noticing. I have to admit I have thought the same about the shipping (and maybe the construction bit) and would probably look to split out to sub-articles eventually. Was undecided whether Electrification would be better under Railway operations or Traction and Rolling Stock. Maybe I'll create a new section along the lines of "Technology" or "Innovation" and put it in there along with 10000 & 10001, turbomotives etc..... ColourSarge (talk) 06:23, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Innovation section is a good idea -- worth highlighting this sort of thing. These "Big Four" articles should be sprouting sub-articles all over the place! Realised last night that an alternative for the larger tables is to make them collapsible (as is often done for geo coords -- eg Bridgwater and Taunton Canal).

EdJogg (talk) 10:39, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Resetting the indent. OK, good idea about making the tables collapsible - not sure how to do this though - have taken a look at the table in the article you cite and it appears this is a format specifically for Points of Interest, with fixed headers. If I get the chance I will try to find the template and see if I can replicate something similar for this article - unless there is an easier way to do this that I have missed? ColourSarge (talk) 15:29, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Further to the above I have this evening undertaken a major re-write of the "Railway Operations" section, plus a lesser re-write of the "Hotels" sub-section. I have also created two new, related "List" articles. One removes the table of shipping facilities mentioned above, while the other lists the hotels operated by the LMS. ColourSarge (talk) 00:22, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

re collapsible tables -- haven't used them myself, but you may find LMS Stanier Class 5 4-6-0#Construction details enlightening.

EdJogg (talk) 01:39, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Further reference material for future use

I invite anyone to put details of potential reference sources here, to be used in the future push for GA status for this article.

For my part I have come across this [1] very entertaining site, which seems to have numerous links to other related sites. Not sure if the actual site linked to there is admissable though as it is an amateur reconstruction of what the LMS website might have looked like had the internet been around in the 1930s! Certainly an interesting thought! ColourSarge (talk) 00:53, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Derry/Londonderry re LMS

Watchers of this page will have noticed a torrent of reversions between Derry and Londonderry by a number of editors interested in editing Ireland-related articles. There seems to be some history of edit-warring among these editors, so the submit comment regarding 'wikistalking' is actually not far off the mark.

The problem, as far as I can make out, is that 'Derry' is the preferred term according to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles) (WP:IMOS), but historically the LMS would have served 'Londonderry', since that was the official name at the time.

My proposal (with no axe to grind except to limit the number of edits appearing on this page) is that we should use the historical term in this case, in the same way that we would most likely use the historical name of a station that was later renamed under BR.

EdJogg (talk) 14:50, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Your proposal sounds good, although I'd be happier if we had that historical-use precedent written down somewhere as a guideline, perhaps in a relevant WikiProject if not the MoS. Otherwise we've little to point to, and may be seen as taking sides. Have we such a guideline? – Kieran T ^(talk) 14:54, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not aware of such a guideline, but you make a good point about taking sides.

EdJogg (talk) 15:03, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

(e/c)As this is an almost insignificant part of the page, (it's covered by a separate article), can we get rid of the problem by changing the wording to ...The LMS was also the only one of the Big Four companies to operate rail services in Northern Ireland, serving most major settlements in the province? —  Tivedshambo  _{(t/c) (logged on as Pek)} 14:57, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I nearly just deleted this one name, but felt that it wouldn't be a solution -- hence the inline comment. Removing the name list altogether sounds like a good idea! EdJogg (talk) 15:03, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Any comments?

After quite an intense period of editing this article, I have spent a few days away from it to encourage others to comment or edit as they wish, or to comment on what I have done. I am currently preparing some more material to be included in the article but would like some comment from others before I proceed - any comments on writing style, content added, content to be included in future edits, or general comments on the article would be welcome and help me shape my future activity on this article. ColourSarge (talk) 11:38, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I like it. You've got a good skeleton of an article. It is missing the necessary in-line citations that are needed, but we can add those to the article as it currently exists without too much of a problem. Good Work.Pyrotec (talk) 11:44, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I haven't read it thoroughly but its looking good. As above, what stands out is the lack of inline citations. If you're working from those sources right now, could you make a note of the page numbers for each source, and consider using the {{Harvnb}} template? An example of how this works may be found in this article - Pendle witch trials. Parrot of Doom (talk) 12:01, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Cheers guys, was concerned about putting too many references into the article so have tended to do one citation at the end of the section to cover the whole section. I'll take a look at the tool suggested above to see if I can work out how to use it and incorporate it in my future work, and revisit what I have done. Just not looking forward to trawling back through the book to find the pages each bit of info is on :o( Ah well, gotta be done, am determined to get this article towards GA status eventually! :o) ColourSarge (talk) 12:19, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Its a bit more serious than that: the Overview, Joint lines, Areas of competition, Northern Ireland and Geographical oddities, just to name one section, are totally devoid of citations. We can help. Its just an "in-your-face" GAR-failure on WP:verifiability at present, so it needs to be addressed near the start of the process not at the end where it is far more difficult.Pyrotec (talk) 12:29, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Pyrotec, that's exactly the kind of guidance I am looking for! Taken on board, if I recall correctly (and bearing in mind I have done quite a lot of editing lately, it all just merged into one large Crimson Lake coloured blur!) I made those edits back in May when I first discussed developing the article. I think at the time I made them through referring to other wikipedia articles, however they are covered in the sources I have used for my more recent editing work, so I will add them in as soon as I have got to grips with the tool mentioned above.

As an aside, I just made a minor correction to the title for the geography section, and I noticed a tag at the top of the page stating that the article is now 33kb - I vaguely remember some time ago seeing a reference to how long an article should be and how to reduce it to a manageable length, but can't seem to find that page now (only read it, didn't edit so not in my edit history) - could anyone point me in the right direction to find it, as knowing that I have more content to add to the article I would like to stop it becoming unwieldy and know what the "reasonable" limit is....I have in my recent edits already created a couple of list articles (on dock facilities and hotels) to try and trim out some of the length. ColourSarge (talk) 12:37, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Don't forget that the size of the article also includes formatting and citations. Its the article text you need to think about, it will be much smaller than you think. Parrot of Doom (talk) 21:52, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, is there anyway to determine the size of the article without the formatting and citations? ColourSarge (talk) 01:30, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

You needn't worry yet! Just out of curiosity I thought I'd compare the LMS and GWR articles. The latter is (probably) substantially complete, but still growing. The LMS article was about 10.5 screen-fulls long (+refs), the GWR article is 18. The LMS article is 'only' 33kB, whereas the GWR one is now 83kB -- but this usefully triggers the banner regarding article size (only apparent when you're editing the article). Between 30 and 50 kB we should be looking at splitting the article further...

The page you're looking for is Wikipedia:Article size (aka WP:SIZE and WP:TOOLONG!) This also gives a link for the tool you're after.

EdJogg (talk) 02:01, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

(undent) OK I've been doing some work on referencing material this evening. In particular some of the following sections / sub sections: Infobox, Joint Lines, Scheduled services (last para), Notable people.

There is clearly a lot more work to do on this, which I will work through as and when I can referencing from the source I have been using, before I add any "new" content. There will also be some cleanup as the same source is quoted a couple of different ways in the Source list, but I will probably try to do this cleanup after my first pass through referencing so that nothing goes unreferenced for the time being.

As always comments on the above sections welcomed to let me know if I am referencing enough, too much or just right. :o) ColourSarge (talk) 01:16, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've just completed updating all of the original references to Whitehouse and Thomas (2002), replacing the generic references with specific page references, and adding in a few dozen new references while I was at it. There is still more work to do before the "current" article is fully referenced, and I hope to have a good crack at that this coming weekend - I aim to complete this work before I move back to adding new material (which will be referenced as I go). Once this has been done I will then use the other, limited, sources I have access to, to add secondary references and new material as and where I can, so the article is not so reliant on one source. As always any feedback, suggestions, comments or common sense notes (such as "go to bed, you have work in the morning!") welcomed! :o) ColourSarge (talk) 00:59, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Go to bed, you have work in the morning! :-) Can I helpfully suggest that you stop adding Whitehouse & Thomas citations for the moment. I've have nothing against them other than its the only ones used; and that is likely to result in a: {{Onesource}} Hold.

I have other sources on the LMS and there are other editors that can help.Pyrotec (talk) 17:18, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

That's fine, and as you can see I did take a bit of a break - Whitehouse & Thomas is the main source I have been using - there are others that I am trying to pull useful information from, but I was just trying to reference the material I had already added first, as requested further up the page. I'm all for other editors adding material and references but there seems to be little interest in this article at the moment. I have Whitehouse and Thomas (and the other sources) for a limited period of time as they are library books, so I'm keen to ensure I extract the relevant information before they have to be returned. :o) ColourSarge (talk) 16:16, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

LMS Logo

I have for some time considered that an image of the LMS logo would be more appropriate in this article's infobox than the current image of the emblem carved into stonework. I know an image of the LMS logo appears on the homepage of the [Forum], but after having spent an hour traweling through various help pages on licensing and uploading images, I am still not sure whether it would qualify as public domain or fair use - uploading images is typically an area that I steer clear of. Does anyone with more experience of image uploading have any advice, or better still a suitable source for an image of the LMS logo? :o) ColourSarge (talk) 16:22, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone have any advice or comments on this? :o) ColourSarge (talk) 13:32, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Um, the forum link appears to be dead just now... Have you thought about asking The LMS Society for assistance? They should be able to provide you with a suitable source. Logos are permitted on WP, usually classed as non-free use (and hence only permissible on directly related pages). Not sure how this relates to a defunct company though -- an email to the NRM might prove fruitful...? In the mean time, the licensing on Image:Sharp logo.svg may be of interest (this may not be the best example, but it is 'close to home'...).

EdJogg (talk) 14:13, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Have done some digging and I wonder if Wikipedia:Manual_of_style_(trademarks)#The_use_of_graphic_logos covers it, especially where it mentions old logos? ColourSarge (talk) 17:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I think I would be inclined to stick it in under Public Domain (with a {{trademark}} banner and all the information you would need for a non-free-use image) and see if anyone complains! EdJogg (talk) 17:49, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Need to re-name article?

During my work on the article I have come across a statement which seems to indicate that the article needs to be renamed. The section below is an extract from p135 of Whitehouse & Thomas (2002) as referenced in the article:

"Publicity played a vital - but ever changing - role in the life of the LMS. And note that it was LMS as distinct from L.N.E.R., indeed the only one of the Big Four not to put full stops between its initials, a distinction carefully followed even when the four took joint ads. (But there was not always consistency in the use of the initials or the company's full name, London Midland and Scottish Railway, still with no punctuation.)"

This would suggest to me that the article name should be London Midland and Scottish Railway i.e. without the comma after London. ColourSarge (talk) 13:14, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. Trouble is that it goes against the generally accepted rules of grammar, and forever after you will have editors (like me) seeing the missing comma and wanting to come here and "correct" the name of the article! The same problem exists with the Manchester Bolton and Bury Canal, where the official name (as reflected by the associated preservation group) has no comma after Manchester, but the comma may be equally present or absent in current and historical texts depending on whether a well-meaning copy-editor has 'corrected' it or not! (And it still looks wrong to me: where is "Manchester Bolton", anyway?) However the LMS may well have been intended as the "London–Midland and Scottish Railway", rather than the "London <pause>, Midland and Scottish Railway", maybe?? I dunno -- verging dangerously into OR territory here!

I'm not convinced that the quote is sufficient to warrant an article name-change, not least because the meaning of the sentence in brackets is not clear to me. I would suggest that this should be covered under the "Publicity" section.

EdJogg (talk) 14:00, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

You make very fair points Ed, and I'm not convinced either, all through my recent editing activity here I have been adding the comma, and after recent involvement in another, largely semantic, series of discussions over Sites of Special Scientific Interest, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty etc, I am inclined to agree we should leave where it is, unless some compelling evidence comes along to the contrary. Your idea of mentioning it within the article is a good one though. ColourSarge (talk) 19:09, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

largest joint stock company?

Where does this claim come from? I found The railway heritage committee say The LMS became the Empire’s largest joint stock company. --Robert EA Harvey (talk) 20:09, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

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Route map

No map? Sca (talk) 16:07, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

No, because it would be huge and extremely complicated. In Great Britain alone, the LMS owned (or jointly owned) routes extending to Holyhead, Stranraer, Oban and Kyle of Lochalsh in the west; Thurso in the north; Lowestoft and Shoeburyness in the east; and Broadstone in the south. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:36, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Understand, but an illustrative map wouldn't have to show every minor bit of trackage. It would be helpful to have a general visual representation showing the extent of the far-flung LMS network (with which non-UK readers and younger readers will not be familiar). Sca (talk) 20:29, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Did it make any profit?

It was a for-profit company listed on the stock market.

What was its financial performance like? Did it make profits, or lose money? Did its shares outperform the stock market or lag? How did its shares perform relative to other railway companies in the UK? Dividends? Return on capital?

There is only an unreferenced sentence on this: "In 1938, the LMS operated 6,870 miles (11,056 km) of railway (excluding its lines in Northern Ireland), but its profitability was generally disappointing, with a rate of return of only 2.7%. "

Rate of return on what? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.160.165.186 (talk) 09:42, 20 March 2020 (UTC)