Pickersgill Caledonian Class 72

There were only 5 members of this class of 3P 4-4-0s left by the time of my summer ’62 combined volume. They had all been withdrawn by the end of that year and none were selected for preservation. I did not see any of them, unfortunately, as I only got as far north as Carlisle during the age of steam.

Introduced in 1920, 32 locomotives were built in total in three batches – at St Rollox works, by Armstrong Whitworth and by the North British Locomotive Company, and all of them survived into LMS and then BR hands. The Caledonian Class 113, of which 16 were constructed in 1916, were the slightly smaller fore-runners of the 72s. Collectively, the series was known as the Dunalastairs. John Dyer photographed Nos. 54485 and 54494 at Perth sheds [63A] on 1/8/1960. Perth sheds closed in 1967.