Matrix Trains Lancashire & Yorkshire Carriage Sets - L&Y ERA -

Without a London terminus the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway was sometimes considered a largely provincial and therefore, unimportant company. Nothing could be further from the truth. Among the old companies it rated twelfth in route mileage, but fifth in locos owned which reflects the volume of traffic it handled.

This package contains a set of nine different L&Y coaches, both corridor and non-corridor, all built at the company’s Newton Heath works during the early years of the twentieth century. These coaches continued in service during LMS days and most lasted until the fifties.  After the LMS was formed trains of exclusively L&Y stock began to disappear, as ex-LNWR and MR coaches were transferred to the former L&Y lines and ex-L&Y coaches were moved away. However, L&Y coaches would continue to serve and could be seen all across the LMS system.

The L&Y served a densely populated industrial district, and thus employed many short-distance, high- capacity coaches. For its medium distance services, it used mainly non-corridor 3-sets (brake third-composite-brake third), like the ‘LBL’ sets on the Leeds-Bradford-Liverpool service, with extra coaches added when traffic demanded. Such sets (which more often than not would be hauled by a 2-4-2 tank engine) can be formed by using the non-corridor coaches included in the pack.

In 1913 the L&Y introduced the so-called ‘Fireproof’ trains in an attempt to avoid moving to electric carriage lightning. More importantly, with the introduction of these trains the L&Y became a trendsetter in the adoption of open saloon coaches for long distance traffic. Also, although these coaches could not delay the eventual move to electricity, with their large windows they were distinctly modern looking coaches, much used on the so called ‘Club’ trains to Southport and Blackpool and the Liverpool-Newcastle and Liverpool-York expresses.