Unidentified Midland Railway Johnson '1400' class 2-4-0. A class of 60 locomotives built 1879-1881 and withdrawn by the LMS between 1925 and 1949. At Millhouses on the western outskirts of Sheffield, the Midland Railway's routes west to Manchester and south to Derby diverged a couple of miles west of this circa 1900 view from Woodseats Road Bridge taken before the lines were quadrupled. An unidentified Johnson '1400' class 2-4-0 is leaving the city with a fascinating rake of rolling stock and will shortly pass the MR's Millhouses MPD. The newly built terraces of Rydal Road, some still as yet unoccupied, are prominent alongside the railway.
(The 6-wheel clerestory third helps date the photo to no earlier than spring/summer 1898, as these carriages were ordered from the trade in Nov 1897, with 26 of the 100 contracted for being delivered by August 1898.)


© Steve Armitage Collection