Locomotives of the London and North Western Railway

The London and North Western Railway (LNWR) Locomotive Department was headquartered at Crewe from 1862.

The GJR and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (LMR) initially had their workshops at Edge Hill.

On the GJR, breakages of the inside-cylinder engines' crank axles led to the redesign of several with outside cylinders under locomotive superintendent Francis Trevithick.

Trevithick was dismissed and returned to Cornwall with an honorarium, and was replaced at Crewe by John Ramsbottom as Northern Division Superintendent.

Ramsbottom began to standardise and modernise the locomotive stock, initially replacing the 2-4-0 goods engines with his "DX" 0-6-0, of which over 900 were built at Crewe from 1858 to 1872.

Before 1873 locomotives had been green with black lines, and this seems to have been the normal livery from London & Birmingham and Grand Junction times.

With a reasonably comprehensive fleet, Bowen Cooke arranged exchanges with other railways in 1909 and 1910 to assess the scope for improvements, among which was superheating.

Only a dozen locomotives were built at Wolverton from 1845 to the end of 1854, but in the following year construction started in earnest, and another 154 were completed in 1855–1863.

It is based on the LNWR Alfred the Great Class and is the only surviving Crewe built Webb Compound.