LMS Stanier Mogul

The Stanier Mogul was designed under William Stanier at Horwich Works and built at Crewe Works between October 1933 and March 1934, forty engines in all. It was a direct development of the Hughes Crab 2-6-0, carrying over that engine's general layout but replacing its parallel Belpaire boiler with a Stanier taper boiler, a feature Stanier brought with him from the Great Western Railway.

The taper boiler worked at 225 psi against the Crab's 180 psi. The higher pressure allowed a cylinder diameter 3 in smaller, and that in turn allowed the cylinders to be mounted horizontally instead of steeply inclined. It is the only Stanier design in which they were.

Only forty were built. From the end of 1934 Stanier turned to a larger 4-6-0 for mixed-traffic work, the Black Five, and the Mogul was left as a single batch rather than a repeat order.

The class worked mixed-traffic duties on the LMS and, after nationalisation, the London Midland Region. Withdrawals ran from November 1963 to February 1967.

One engine survived. No. 13268, later 2968 and then 42968, escaped because it went to Woodham Brothers at Barry rather than straight to the cutter's torch. All thirty-nine of its sisters were scrapped. See 42968.

A 2-6-0 with two horizontal outside cylinders and a Stanier taper boiler. The horizontal cylinders are the quickest way to tell the class from the Hughes Crab it developed from, whose cylinders are steeply inclined, and this was the only Stanier design to carry them that way.

42968, built at Crewe in January 1934 as LMS 13268, is the sole survivor of the class and the only one to reach preservation. It is at the Severn Valley Railway.

The forty engines were initially allocated across all four Divisions of the LMS, but within a few years had been concentrated on the Western Division. Their usual haunts were Crewe (mostly Crewe South, but also Crewe North), the Birmingham area, Birkenhead and Mold Junction. Through British Railways days the largest allocations were at Crewe South, Willesden and Heaton Mersey.

The class worked fast fitted goods, parcels, secondary passenger trains and excursions, and was also used on heavier freight. The sole survivor was new to Willesden in January 1934 and later worked from North Western sheds including Aston, Bescot and Nuneaton, ending its career at Springs Branch, Wigan.

The class was always painted black, lined out except during the austerity of the 1940s and towards the end of steam.

The sole survivor carried BR black through most of its preservation career before returning to LMS lined black as 13268 in 2024.

One is preserved. No. 42968, built as LMS 13268, is owned by the Stanier Mogul Fund and based at the Severn Valley Railway. It currently runs in LMS lined black as 13268, its original identity. See 42968.