Duchess 75

The London Midland & Scottish Railway’s Princess Coronation Pacifics, otherwise known as Duchesses, were built to tackle the arduous West Coast Main Line route from London Euston to Glasgow including the daunting summits of Shap and Beattock. They represented a pinnacle of the career of their designer, chief mechanical engineer,  William Stanier, 

but also of the steam era itself. 


Marking the 75th anniversary of the transatlantic visit of No. 6229 Duchess of Hamilton as No. 6220 Coronation to the 1939 New York World’s Fair, this special publication looks at the history of this magnificent class, which in its heyday rivalled the LNER’s world-beating A4 streamlined Pacifics including the legendary Mallard. 


The story begins with Stanier’s years with the Great Western Railway and the design of his first LMS Pacifics, the record-breaking run of Coronation, the withdrawal of the class by British Railways in 1964 and the careers of the three surviving examples in preservation.