1948 Locomotive Exchanges
GWR Modified Hall class 4-6-0 No 6990 Witherslack Hall approaches Marylebone with the with the 1.56pm up express in June 1948.

Peter Kerslake says "Coupled with the former L.N.E.R. Dynamometer Car which had been used when "Mallard" ran down Stoke bank at 126 m.p.h. ten years earlier 6990 "Witherslack Hall" heads towards Marylebone on a working from Manchester during the 1948 Exchanges, this being the only route upon which the "Hal " was permitted to run due to clearence restrictions caused by its large outside cylinders.
This former Great Central Railway main line was an ideal route for use during the Exchanges, providing as it did a fast and relatively junction free run for much of its length northwards from Marylebone to the North East Midlands.
Happily "Witherslack Hall" many years later escaped the cutters' torches and made it into preservation.

During most of its working life from newly built in April of 1948 "Witherslack Hall" was an Old Oak Common engine apart from having spent a year at Oxford and its final two tears at Bristol.
Condemned in December of 1965 the engine was rescued from Barry scrap yard in late 1975 and by a twist of fate was destined to spend much of its time in its preserved state here in the former Great Central territory, the scene of its Exchange workings from thirty years earlier."

Photo: F.R. Hebron/Rail Archive Stephenson