The two young spotters head back down the platform. Can you imagine a boy of their age in shorts and sandals nowadays!

46212 Duchess of Kent was about to leave Euston when photographed sometime between February 1954, when it had received a domed combustion chamber boiler, and June 1959 when AWS was fitted. The hinged side screen between the cab windows on the fireman’s side was a standard fitting from 6203 onwards and added to 6200 and 6201 by 1936. The pipe clipped to the platform angle delivered water from the exhaust steam injector below the fireman’s side of the cab to the top feed. The gangway doors originally had rubber extensions attached to their lower edges both as draught excluders and to prevent coal falling off the footplate. The rubber frequently split or came loose though and by the time this picture was taken they had all but disappeared.