LMS 2P Class

The LMS 2P Class was a series of inside-cylinder 4-4-0 express and secondary passenger tender locomotives designed by Henry Fowler, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the LMS from 1925 to 1931, and built at Derby Works from 1928. The 2P Class represented a continuation of Midland Railway 4-4-0 practice — Fowler was a Derby man through and through, and his LMS designs largely perpetuated the conservative Midland small-engine policy that the Grouping had inherited from the pre-war MR under S. W. Johnson and his successor Richard Deeley.

The 2P 4-4-0 used inside cylinders and a modestly sized boiler, continuing the Midland's characteristic approach of building relatively small locomotives and working them in multiples on heavier trains rather than constructing large, powerful single units. This policy had been controversial even within the LMS, as the Midland's small-engine approach proved inadequate for the demanding Anglo-Scottish expresses on the West Coast Main Line, and Fowler's continuation of it at the LMS was one reason Stanier was brought in from the GWR in 1932 to transform LMS locomotive practice.

Despite their modest power classification, the 2P 4-4-0s gave long and useful service on secondary express and semi-fast passenger duties where their limitations were less constraining: the ex-Midland main line stopping and semi-fast services, the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway's passenger workings, and similar secondary duties across the LMS. Several examples survived into the BR era working on lightly-loaded secondary passenger turns. One example is preserved.