1948: BR’S FIRST YEAR
Seventy years ago this month, Rugby Testing Station was opened. In hindsight, the construction of a steam locomotive testing facility only seven years before British Railways announced its Modernisation Plan, which sowed the seeds for the eradication of steam from the main line, seems short-sighted. Indeed, Rugby was only used for 11 years, with the final test taking place in September 1959.
Given its short life, why was Rugby Testing Station opened at all?
In 1948, BR was still committed to the steam locomotive. It had recently conducted the Locomotive Exchange Trials (see SR480) and was planning to introduce its own Standard range of locomotives, so having somewhere to evaluate the new designs’ performance, as well as modifications and experiments on existing motive power, was vital.
However, while it was a child of nationalisation, the concept of a dedicated locomotive assessment facility was first mooted in the ‘Big Four’ era by Sir Nigel Gresley. In his Presidential Address to the Institution of Locomotive Engineers on September 29 1927, the LNER chief mechanical engineer proposed the establishment of a locomotive testing station that could be used by all the ‘Big Four’ railway companies.
A site on the outskirts of Leeds was provisionally selected, but owing to the economic depression of the early 1930s, the Government withdrew funding.
As the Great Western Railway had its own testing apparatus at Swindon, and with the Southern committed to extensive electrification, the only other ‘Big Four’ company interested in Gresley’s proposal was the LMS, and in 1937 it entered into a partnership with the LNER to build a testing station at Rugby.
The facility was inspired by the similar locomotive testing plant at Vitry in France, to where Gresley had dispatched his prototype ‘P2’ No. 2001 Cock O’ The North for extensive tests in 1934, the year after its opening.
Building work was halted by the outbreak of the Second World War, and did not resume until hostilities had ceased,
with the Rugby Testing Station officially opening in October 1948.
Almost certainly in deference to the man who had first suggested it,
‘A4’ No. 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley was the first locomotive to take its place on the testing station’s famous rolling road, providing demonstrations between October 16‑19 1948.
A total of 26 different engines were tested at Rugby (see panel), including the experimental gas turbine locomotive GT3. ‘9Fs’ were the main locomotives evaluated at Rugby, with a member of the latter class – No. 92250 – being the last locomotive tested there. Nearly all the data collected at Rugby survives in the National Railway Museum archive.