Welcome to Railway 200 Fridays! Railway 200 is a year-long campaign celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway and the birth of modern rail. As a RAIL200 partner, National Historic Ships UK will be publishing monthly posts throughout 2025 that highlight connections between maritime heritage and rail. Today, we are looking at the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, which was featured in the 2024 People’s Choice Award-winning photograph, True LMS Locomotive Colours, by Julie Fletcher.
The London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company (LMS for short) was created in 1923 as one of four companies arising from the Railways Act 1921. The largest of the four, LMS not only inherited extensive rail infrastructure and machinery, but also over 500 miles of canal, 64 steamboats, and 27 docks. Connecting the whole UK, it was one of the biggest providers of land, sea, and inland waterways transportation in the world.
LMS ran steamship services to Ireland, as well as on the Clyde, and its fleet was continually increased during the company’s lifetime. TS Queen Mary, built in 1933, was put to work by LMS on one of these routes, carrying mail and passengers from the Clyde to the West Coast of Scotland. Other steam vessels commissioned by LMS include National Historic Fleet vessels Teal and Swan, sisterships built in the 1930s to improve the rail company’s service in Lake Windermere.
Many LMS steamships were requisitioned by the Admiralty during the Second World War in various capacities ranging from troop transport to landing ships and even undertaking anti-aircraft duties. After the conflict, the company published a book, The LMS at War, featuring several paintings by Norman Wilkinson, a long-time collaborator of LMS, which depict the company’s ships in naval actions. Interestingly, Norman Wilkinson is better known in maritime for developing dazzle camouflage in the First World War, which was applied to some LMS ships during their war service.
LMS also had a sizeable fleet of working canal boats, many of which were built to carry cargo from factories and mines to railway interchange basins, where their load would be transferred into rail wagons. These vessels were generally horse drawn and were known as ‘station boats’. Many still sport the LMS livery today, such as Delhi, the canal boat featured in True LMS Locomotive Colours. She was built in 1929 by W.J. Yarwood & Sons Ltd as part of an order of 16 steel canal boats for LMS and worked primarily in the Black Country.
In 1948, LMS was nationalized, along with many other British transport companies, by the Transport Act 1947, becoming part of British Railways. This successor company inherited large marine and inland waterways assets and interests, thus continuing the story of rail and maritime links, which we will explore again in a future post.
Next month, we will look at connections between rail and a different bicentennial institution – until then!
Learn more about LMS and their connections to maritime heritage:
The LMS Society, founded in 1963 and dedicated to collating information on the old railway company
John Megoran’s Musing on Mercury and Caledonia, two LMS paddle steamers
John Megoran’s Musing on Sandown, an LMS paddle steamer
One of Norman Wilkinson's LMS at War paintings, showing SS Duke of York in dazzle camouflage
Historic Narrow Boat Club’s page on LMS, with a list of known canal boats that were owned by them
