Incorporated in 1846 the nominally independent East & West India Docks & Birmingham Junction Railway changed its name to the North London Railway in January 1853. Common management with the N&NWR was introduced in February 1909, with the LMS eventually taking over in 1923.

The London & North Western Railway Co (LNWR) was established in 1846 following the amalgamation of the London & Birmingham, Manchester & Birmingham and Grand Junction Railways. The new company was the largest joint stock company in Britain, and initially had a network of approximately 350 miles (560 km) connecting London with Birmingham, Crewe, Chester, Liverpool and Manchester. The LNWR continued to expand and by 1868 the company had added links to Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds, Swansea and Cardiff. However, attempts to amalgamate with Midland Railway ended in failure. By 1871 the London & North Western Railway employed 15,000 people. As part of the 1923 Grouping the LNWR became a constituent of the London, Midland and Scottish (LMS) Railway.

The London, Tilbury and Southend Railway (LTSR) was opened in 1854 as a joint enterprise between the London and Blackwall Railway and the Eastern Counties Railway (later the Great Eastern Railway). The line was completed between Forest Gate and Southend in sections between 1854 and 1856. In 1862 the LTSR was made independent by act of parliament, though the board continued to be dominated by representatives from the original founding companies. Until 1875 the LTSR was worked under an uneasy and fractious leasing agreement between contractors Peto, Brassey & Betts, and the Eastern Counties Railway (later Great Eastern Railway), with stock hired from the latter. In 1875 the LTSR became more formally independent with Arthur Lewis Stride (1841-1922) as General Manager and Engineer. The LTSR continued to prosper and expand along with the expansion of the suburbs around Greater London and into Essex. On its own the company was reaching the limits of its capabilities to meet demand, and debate ensued between the GER and the Midland Railway over a takeover. The LTSR was amalgamated with the Midland Railway in 1912.

During the First World War the government had taken control of the railways to co-ordinate the war effort. After the war ended it was decided that the railway companies could not competitively return to their prior state, and so the 120 existing railway companies were combined into four companies, which became known as the ‘Big Four’’. The London Midland and Scottish Railway, also known as the LMS, was founded on 1 January 1923. The London and North Western Railway (LNWR), Midland Railway (MR), Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (LYR), North Staffordshire Railway (NSR), Highland Railway (HR), Furness Railway (FR), Glasgow and South Western Railway (G&SWR) and Caledonian Railway (CR) were merged. These eight large constituent companies were joined by 27 other smaller subsidiary railways. The LMS covered the Western half of the country, stretching from the London and the Midlands, through Yorkshire, Lancashire, and up to Scotland. In all the LMS had a total of 7,790 miles of track, which made it the largest railway of the Big Four. The London termini of the LMS were St. Pancras and Euston stations and it had works at Crewe, Horwich, Wolverton and Derby amongst other locations. In 1934 the LMS moved into a new headquarters at Euston House on Seymour Street (later renamed Eversholt Street) in London. Charles Napier Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence of Kingsgate was the first appointed chairman of LMS, he had previously been the chairman of the LNWR between 1921-1923. He was chairman of the LMS for one year, and was succeeded by Sir Guy Granet. The management structure was headed by a chairman and a deputy chairman, there was a board of directors that had initially had 20 members, made of men who previously worked for the constituent companies. The first General Manager was Arthur Watson from the LYR. There was a Deputy General Manager for Scotland, a post first held by D.A. Matthieson, formerly of the CR. J.H. Follows, from the Midland Railway, was the first Chief General Superintendent and S.H. Hunt, formerly of the LNWR, was the first Chief Goods Manager. The post of Chief Engineer was initially held by E.F.C. Trench, formerly employed by the LNWR. The first Chief Mechanical Engineer was G. Hughes from the LYR and his deputy was Sir Henry Fowler, from the Midland Railway. The management structure was re-organised from January 1926 and an Executive was set up, Sir Josiah Stamp was the first President of the Executive. From January 1927 four Vice-Presidents were appointed to replace the general managers on the Executive committee. The line was divided up for operational management into three geographical divisions, which were called Western, Midland and Northern. Each division was overseen by a General Superintendent who reported to the Chief General Superintendent. The main line of the LMS ran from London Euston to Wick over 729 miles. The LMS ran a number of joint railways with the London & North Eastern Railway and the Southern Railway. It ran the Cheshire Lines Committee, the Midland and Great Northern line between Peterborough, the Norwich and Lowestoft and the Manchester, South Junction and Altrincham suburban line with the London & North Eastern Railway. It also joined forces with the Southern Railway to run the Somerset and Dorset line between Bath, Burnham and Bournemouth. The LMS undertook a limited programme of electrification, mainly focusing on suburban lines in London and Manchester. The LMS owned many hotels, including the Queen’s Hotel in Leeds and the iconic Art Deco Midland Hotel at Morecombe Bay. The LMS also ran passenger steamers from Holyhead, Heysham and Stranraer over the Irish Sea to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Following the 1947 Transport Act which nationalised the railways, the concerns of the LMS were taken over by the Railway Executive as part of the British Transport Committee. Within the Railway Executive, British Rail: London Midland Region assumed responsibility for the LMS’s former area of operations.

After serving an apprenticeship with an engineering firm in Blackwall, Adams worked in France and Italy, becoming an engineering officer in the Sardinian Navy. In 1854 he became locomotive superintendent of the North London Railway Co (NLR), a position he held until 1873. While at the NLR , he designed the first radial axle and subsequently developed the ‘Adams Bogie’ which enabled locomotives with four leading wheels to negotiate curves at higher speeds. He then went to the Great Eastern Railway’s Stratford Works and in 1878 became locomotive superintendent of the London and South Western Railway Co, a position he held until his retirement in 1895.

Locomotive superintendent of the North London Railway Co 1873-1893 based at Bow Works.

Locomotive superintendent at Bow Works 1893-1908.

Crewe Locomotive Works was built in 1843 for the Grand Junction Railway, and was taken over by the London & North Western Railway (LNWR) three years later. The largest railway owned works in the world at the time, it was at the forefront of new technology, one of the first to introduce machine tools and a pioneer of the Bessemer steel process. In 1888 a world record had been established there, when the 0-6-0 freight locomotive No 2153 was assembled in only 25½ hours. In 1862 the LNWR's Northern and Southern locomotive divisions were amalgamated under the control of one superintendent with headquarters at Crewe. For most of the period locomotive running of LNWR was under charge of the locomotive superintendent or chief mechanical engineer although the internal divisions changed. To facilitate more locomotive repair capacity at Crewe after the amalgamation of the Northern and North Eastern division, coach building was transferred to Saltley, Birmingham in 1859, following this it was concentrated at Wolverton. Gradually the coaching shop at Crewe was given over to locomotive work and all Wolverton’s locomotive building and repair were moved to Crewe. On grouping in 1923 Crewe Works was taken over by the London, Midland & Scottish Railway, building Stanier engines such as the prestigious Coronation Pacifics in the 1930s. Principal activities were locomotive building and repairing including: all new boilers for standard London Midland & Scottish Railway (LMSR) locomotives; steel castings, drop stampings and heavy forgings for all LMSR works; chair castings and points and crossing manufacture for the Chief Civil Engineer’s Department; manufacture of signals, locking frames and crossing-gate work for the Signal and Telegraph Department. The Works had its own 18” gauge railway using engines such as Billy and Dicky for transporting items around the main workshops. In 1989 the works was privatised, as part of British Rail Engineering Ltd.

Wolverton Works was established in 1838 by the London and Birmingham Railway. The London and Birmingham Railway amalgamated with the Grand Junction Railway in 1846 to become the London North Western Railway (LNWR). Initially the works built and repaired locomotives. In 1877 locomotive work ceased and was transferred to Crewe Works. Wolverton Works became the LNWR Carriage Works. By 1907 it was the largest carriage building and repair works in Britain employing some 4500 staff at any one time in the period 1900 – 1924. After Grouping in 1923 Wolverton Works became the London Midland and Scottish Railway Company’s Carriage and Wagon Works, building and maintaining both carriages and wagons. During World War Two Wolverton Works repaired Whitley bombers, produced sections of Horsa gliders, and converted nearly 700 commercial motor vans into armoured vehicles. Following nationalisation Wolverton Works operated as a major works until 1962. It then became a carriage repair works only on part of the original site. From 1970 onwards the Wolverton Works was operated by British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL). Upon the re-organisation of BREL in 1986 Wolverton Works passed to British Rail Maintenance Ltd. Subsequently, the site was owned by Alstom, and then by Railcare Ltd. In 2013 the Knorr-Bremse group of companies acquired the site from Railcare Ltd (in administration). As at February 2014 Knorr-Bremse Railservices (UK) Ltd occupies it.

In 1879 the Plaistow Works was set up to supply the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway (LTSR) with locomotives and rolling stock. Initially some 4-4-2 tank locomotives were supplied by Sharp, Stewart & Co Ltd, gradually supplanting those supplied by the GER. The workshops were built by Kirk & Parry of Sleaford and were fully operational by 1881. In 1879 Thomas Whitelegg (c1841-1911) from the Great Eastern Railway Works at Stratford was appointed Locomotive, Carriage & Wagon and Marine Superintendent at the Plaistow Works of the LTSR. He remained in this position until retirement in June 1910, when he was succeeded by his son, Robert Harben Whitelegg (1871-1957). Thomas had been a draughtsman at Stratford and Robert followed the same trade, joining the LTSR as draughtsman in 1888. The locomotive works did not build its own locomotives, which were purchased from outside contractors, but did carry out extensive repair and rebuilding work. From 1923 some types of locomotives were built for the London Tilbury and Southend Section by the LMS Works at Derby. The works complex in 1912 consisted of a small Locomotive Works (including an erecting shop, boiler shop and machine shop), a Carriage and Wagon Paint Shop (converted from the old C&W shops) and a Carriage and Wagon Shops building that had once been the locomotive running shed. The overall set-up was cramped and confined. Essentially reduced to a local maintenance role, the locomotive works at Plaistow were closed in 1925 by the London Midland and Scottish Railway, and any work transferred to the Bow Works of the former North London Railway. The Carriage and Wagon shops continued until 1931 when their work and some staff were transferred to Wolverton.