The Clan Class

There were just ten members of the Clan Class. The 4-6-2s were designed by Robert Riddles for BR in 1952 and built at Crewe works. A further fifteen were planned but never constructed. At 6P5F, they were lighter and less powerful than the Britannias, and for me the front-end view of the locomotives was not quite so pleasing as that of their distinctive predecessors, probably due to the use of a smaller boiler. I saw all of the class but my abiding memory is of No. 72000 Clan Buchanan at the head of a Glasgow-bound train in Liverpool Exchange station, c. 1960. The Liverpool and Manchester sections of the Glasgow expresses were combined northbound and divided southbound at Preston, I think, so the main train engine probably took the Manchester component. In the years that followed I can’t remember ever seeing any of the class working south of Preston again. None of the Clans were preserved, but the construction of No. 72010 Hengist is well under way. John Dyer photographed No. 72001 Clan Cameron at Preston in the summer of 1959 and No. 72004 Clan MacDonald at Glasgow Central on 3/8/60.