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Shortly after nationalisation in 1948, the then recently formed British Railways Board (BRB) decided to carry out a comprehensive review of the locomotive stock it had just inherited from the ‘Big Four’ independent railway companies. What soon became clear was that the entire locomotive fleet was constituted of hundreds of different class types, large numbers of which were getting close to retirement or in some cases, were already life-expired. Right from the beginning the government-owned organisation had to cut costs as quickly and as practical as possible. No mean undertaking with a railway almost bankrupted by war. However, work began straight away and in its first 12 months, the BRB had recruited the renowned locomotive engineer Robert A Riddles, formerly of the LMS, to assume responsibility for the Mechanical & Electrical Engineering department. Riddles first task was developing a small range of new steam locomortive designs, the intention being that they replace the older pre-nationalisation locomotives.

Riddles’ eventual course of action was to utilies the best pre-nationalisation designs and incorporate the best qualities of each into his standardised locomotives, thus amalgamating the greatest engineering feats from all of the pre-nationalisation railway companies. His first move towards creating the new designs were the ‘Locomotive Exchange Trials’. Riddles started his quest by choosing a quantityof express type locomotives from each of the newly-formed Regions and employing them on ‘foreign’ territory. For instance, LMS engines were run over the Southern Region where there were no water troughs. To compensate for this they were paired with four-axled ex-War Department tenders with larger water tanks. These were given LMS lettering especially for the occasion. Similarly, ex-Southern Region locomotives used elsewhere were paired with ex-LMS tenders with water scoops. This yielded some important information for the design team on how suitable certain locomotive classes were to certain stretches of line.

Having completed the Locomotive Exchange Trials, Riddles’ Chief Draftsmen went back to the drawing board and began to shape the first of the then new ’standardised’ steam locomotives. Officially, these comparisons were intended to establish the best features of the four different approaches to locomotive design in order to incorporate them in the new BR standard designs. However, the methods used for testing lacked any real scientific value, and taking his background into account and other political influences, it meant that LMS practice was largely followed by the new standard designs regardless, and it is not really surprising that virtually all of Riddles’ final products would closely resemble the designs pioneered by the LMS, in particular those locomotives which were designes of Stanier and Ivatt.

However, the trials were useful publicity for BR to show the unity of the new British Railways. By 1950 the first express passenger locomotive design had been finalised at Derby and in the same year, the British Transport Commission placed an order with Crewe Works for the building of twenty-four of the type. What came forth from Crewe on 2nd January 1951 was a 4-6-2 Pacific locomotive looking conspicuously like the Coronation class of engines designed by William Stanier, also formerly of the LMS. The imposing engine, finished in a plain black scheme with no lining, was scheduled for a test run between Crewe and Carlisle on 11th January 1951, a dynamometer carriage being one of the carriages it was to haul. Following the test run, which proved to be a promising start for the type, the locomotive, numbered 70000, was repainted into the much more familiar lined BR Brunswick Green and delivered to Marylebone station on the penultimate day of January to be named. No. 70000 was appropriately called ‘Britannia’, after the female personification of the British Empire, and it marked a very promising step forward for BR.

To mark the Sixtieth Anniversary of the 1948 Locomotive Exchange Trials, in 2008 Hornby Railways released a Limited Edition Model of a 4-6-2 West Country Class Locomotive ‘Bude’ No 34006. This model, represents the classic pairing of a Southern Region Bulleid Pacific with a Stanier Tender. For the collectors out there, the Hornby R2685 West Country Class ‘Bude’ with Stanier Tender was only produced in a limited run of 2008 and each of the model trains came with a numbered Certificate of Authentication.