Ex-LMS Stanier 'Jubilee' class 4-6-0 No. 45623 'Palestine'. Built at Crewe in October 1934 as LMS No. 5623 and withdrawn in July 1965. The paricularly unlovely buildings that once overlooked Birmingham New Street Station are (thankfully) no more. Their only purpose to those of us who never visited, was to immediately identify this location in photographs! One of the unhappier place names to be bestowed on a 'Jubilee', Palestine and its troubles seldom seem far from the news, usually for all the wrong reasons. When this fine image was taken in June 1950, Palestine was only two years into its existence and such things were far from our minds.

© Les Hanson-David Hanson Archive