This book is from the publisher’s “Locomotive Portfolios” series and describes all locomotive classes of the Midland Railway and its successor, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, colloquially known as the LMS, that had a 4-4-0 wheel arrangement.

The design, construction, operation and performance of a large number of variants built by Johnson, Deeley and Fowler are covered in detail, as well as their work on the Midland main lines from St Pancras to Derby and Manchester, Leeds via the Settle & Carlisle line to Carlisle, and on the West Coast main line.

It also covers the history of the Midland 4-4-0s built for the Somerset & Dorset and Midland & Great Northern Railways.

Published in October 2021 by Pen & Sword and written by David Maidment, this hardback book in landscape format measures around 24.8 cm x 24.1 cm, has 352 pages, and over 400 black and white illustrations, weight diagrams and logs.

It has a published price of £35, and at the time of writing it can be obtained from Pen & Sword for £28 and Amazon for £24.99

There are eight chapters, with Chapter 1 providing a brief summary of each engineer’s life and work. The next three chapters cover the Midland’s Class 2, Class 3; and Class 4 designs.

Chapter 5 looks at the options open to the LMS after the Grouping, followed by Chapters covering the LMS 4P Compounds and Class 2P.

The final chapter takes a balanced look at each class’s good and bad points to reach conclusions about the success or otherwise of their design, and how the different types performed in operational use.

Finally, very useful appendices provide weight diagrams and statistics for each class, including their dimensions, when each locomotive was built and withdrawn, and their first and last depots.

Each chapter also includes performance logs of typical runs by the class and comparative logs of other classes on the same lines.

The pages below provide a good example of the challenge faced by the author in assembling material for use in this book.

The photo at the top left dates from 1882 but was built five years earlier in 1877 when it was allocated to Cornbrook depot in Manchester.

It had a working life of 47 years and was withdrawn from Sheffield in 1924.

These pages show Class 2 4-4-0s built for the Somerset and Dorset Railway and illustrate the extensive amount of descriptive detail that accompanies numerous photos of each class.

Very useful for model makers will be the 42 pages in an Appendix containing weight diagrams and statistics for each class and all their variants.

Every 4-4-0 locomotive produced for the Midland and London, Midland and Scottish Railway is included, with details of when they were built, their original number and shed allocation, the dates of receiving different types of boiler, different numbers they received, and their final shed allocation and date of withdrawal.

Throughout the book, there are comparative charts of typical runs, both against other members of the same class and against other types of locomotives.

Although useful in themselves, they can be more accurately assessed when used in conjunction with the relevant gradient charts such as those shown below.

In this thoroughly researched book, David Maidment has compiled a comprehensive and detailed guide to every locomotive with a 4-4-0 wheel arrangement that graced the metals of the Midland and LMS Railways for nearly 80 years.

The amount of detail in the Appendix is staggering and will be invaluable to railway modellers. The over 400 photographs and diagrams include many period shots dating back to the 1870s and 1880s, and all are reproduced to a high standard.

This is an impressive book that provides an invaluable guide to this long-lived and numerous type of locomotive, and will find pride of place on the bookshelves of railway historians, enthusiasts, and railway model makers alike, and fully deserves a rating of 5/5.

The book is available to purchase from Amazon and Pen & Sword.

We would like to thank Pen & Sword for providing RailAdvent with a copy of the book for review.