LNWR Bloomfield

The LNWR Bloomfield Class was a series of inside-cylinder 0-6-0 goods tender locomotives built for the London and North Western Railway from 1858, associated with the design work of John Ramsbottom during his tenure as Locomotive Superintendent of the Northern Division and subsequently CME of the combined LNWR from 1857 to 1871. The Bloomfield designation covers a group of Ramsbottom goods engines that formed part of his systematic programme of locomotive standardisation at Crewe, in deliberate contrast to the variety and inconsistency that had characterised LNWR locomotive policy under his predecessors.

Ramsbottom was one of the most practically effective Victorian locomotive engineers: where McConnell on the Southern Division and the earlier Northern Division superintendents had tended towards individuality and experiment, Ramsbottom introduced interchangeable parts, systematic maintenance procedures, and standardised designs that could be built and repaired efficiently at Crewe with consistent quality. His 0-6-0 goods engines, of which the Bloomfield series was a part, provided the LNWR with reliable and economical freight motive power across the railway's extensive goods network connecting the industrial Midlands, Lancashire, and Yorkshire with the London traffic.

The LNWR's goods traffic in this period was dominated by the movement of coal from the South Staffordshire and North Staffordshire coalfields, general merchandise between the manufacturing towns of the Midlands and Lancashire, and the agricultural produce and general goods of the rural areas the LNWR served. Ramsbottom's 0-6-0s provided the backbone of this traffic for two decades. None of the Bloomfield series was preserved, though Ramsbottom's work at Crewe is documented through surviving engineering drawings and LNWR records.