The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway(L&YR)Class8 was a four-cylinder 4-6-0 express passenger locomotive designed by George Hughes introduced in 1908.

Design and construction The increased weight of trains in the early 1900s and need for improved power on Liverpool—Manchester—Hull expresses and Leeds—Fleetwood boat trains indicated a need for an engine more powerful than the Aspinall's 4-4-2 Atlantic of 1899. Hughes described the requirement in a paper read to the Institute of Mechanical Engineers thus:

Hughes created a design with a boiler producing saturated steam, slide valves and Joy valve gear.

The first examples came out of Horwich Works in June 1908, and the original batch of 20 was completed in by March 1909. Around the time of their construction, they were nicknamed "Dreadnoughts" on account of their large size, after the then-new Royal Navy battleship .

The locomotives proved "sluggish, poor runners and poor steamers". They were subject to a number of modifications to improve steaming, including enlarged blast pipes and an air duct running to the front and rear of the ashpan in order to improve combustion.

The high maintenance demands of the class saw a queue needing attention building up at Horwich Works during World War I. Remedial modifications were restricted but five were fitted with replacement modified boilers to keep them in service.

1920 rebuilding From 1920 to 1921, fifteen were rebuilt with superheaters, piston valves, Walschaerts valve gear, a larger cab, and slightly larger cylinders. The nominal tractive effort of the rebuilds was which made these engines for a time the second most powerful in Great Britain (to the Somerset and Dorset 2-8-0s dating from 1914) until 1922 when the Gresley Pacifics appeared. The rebuilt locomotives were reported to be "a good workman-like engine" and "an engine thoroughly master of its work", although still with a coal consumption on the heavy side.

Later batches Improved performance of the rebuilt locomotives and favourable test comparisons with the LNWR Prince of Wales Class and LNWR Claughton Class in 1921 and published in The Engineer were a trigger for the L&YR to order more of the type.

Deliveries of the ten locomotives in Lot 80 commenced in August 1921 with the last two being delivered after the amalgamation of the L&YR into the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) in 1922. Deliveries from the 25 locomotives Lot 81 commenced in November 1922 with only four built before grouping and creation of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway and the remainder delivered in 1923. The 20 more of Lot 83 were originally part of the 30-locomotive order for the related L&YR Hughes 4-6-4T and were delivered during 1924 apart from the final locomotive No. 10474 on 5 January 1925.

Compound conversion trial No. 10456 was converted to a 4-cylinder compound in July 1926; it was fitted with high pressure and low pressure cylinders.

Build details

+ Table of orders and locomotives Lot No. Qty Manufacturer Serial Nos. Year L&Y Nos. LMS Nos. Notes 60 20 Horwich Works 1009–1028 June 1908 to March 1909 1506–1525 10400–10419 Numbers 10400-10404 not applied 79 (15) Horwich Works — Rebuilt from November 1920 to July 1921 1506/21/16/25/091520/17/24/19/18 10405–10419 rebuilds of Lot 60 80 10 Horwich Works 1319–1328 August to October 1921, March 1922, May 1922 1649–1658 10420–10429 81 25 Horwich Works 1329–1353 November 1922 to September 1923 1659–1678(1679–1683) 10430–10454 83 20 Horwich Works 1364–1383 April 1924 to January 1925 (1694–1713) 10455–10474

Service The original unrebuilt locomotives were described as "poor performers" that were prone to mechanical problems and very poor reliability. By 1918 there was a case of No. 1519, one of the worse performers, having a coal consumption of between Southport and York. During the National coal strike of 1912 the unrebuilt Hughes 4-6-0 class were suspended because while able to "shift anything" their fuel economy was too poor in a time of shortage. The rebuilt locomotives were described as "creditable but not outstanding" and comparable to the LNWR Claughton Class.

As well as former L&YR territory the rebuilt class worked the West Coast Main Line mainly between Crewe and Carlisle but less frequently south to Euston as the LMS Royal Scot Class became available. The last train was an enthusiast excursion from Blackpool to York by what was described as an "old" locomotive on 1 July 1951.

Withdrawal The relatively early withdrawal of most units was due the LMS inheriting 393 different locomotive classes at Grouping, with LMS chairman Sir Josiah Stamp seeing it desirable to reduce this to just 10 classes. Also while Hughes became chief mechanical engineer (CME) of the LNWR following amalgamation with the L&YR and then CME of the LMS, with his resignation in 1925 influence moved from Horwich to Derby. In a paper presented to the Institute of Locomotive Engineers in 1946 E. S. Cox claimed that while the class were capable of some outstanding performances their "steaming, coal consumption and reliability were not outstanding" and were considered unsuitable for general use on the Anglo Scottish routes.

+ Table of withdrawals Year Quantity inservice atstart of year Quantitywithdrawn Locomotive numbers Notes 1925 75 3 1507/13/15 1926 72 3 1508/12, 10417 1933 69 1 10414 1934 68 13 10405/10/13/19/21/24/26–27/31/34/41/47/53 1935 55 17 10407–08/11/28/30/33/39–40/58/61–63/66/69–70/72/74 1936 38 20 10409/15–16/18/25/35–36/38/43/45/49–52/54/56–57/59/68/71 1937 18 7 10406/20/22/44/65/67/73 1939 11 1 10464 1946 10 2 10437/46 1947 8 1 10460 1948 7 1 10423 1949 6 4 10412/29/32/48 1950 2 1 10442 1951 1 1 50455 Only locomotive to have BR livery and number applied.

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