The LMS Society - Home Page

Welcome to the LMS Society web site, which, as the heading picture indicates, is concerned with the London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company. The pages of the site will show something of what we are about and what the LMS achieved in its 25 years of existence but a few words of introduction and explanation are in order here.

The London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company was formed at the Grouping of Britain's railways in January 1923 when the 'Big Four' companies were established - the other three being the London and North Eastern, Southern and Great Western Railways. The LMS was the largest of all, in fact it was the largest joint stock company in the world for a time, and the only one to reach into England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. When the railways were nationalised on 1st January 1948, LMS officers and practices took predominant roles in British Railways and the Company's spirit lived on. For these and other reasons too numerous to mention in a brief overview, we have tried for more than 45 years to keep the memory of the LMS alive and this site will, we hope, give some idea of how.

Society activities and interests are not restricted to the years 1923 - 1947. Our aims and objectives are stated as encompassing the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, its precedents and antecedents and most of our members have interests in, and knowledge of, at least one pre-Grouping constituent company and/or the London, Midland Region and Scottish Region of BR. We are proud of our record in the fields of research and publishing with over a thousand books and articles, having been written by our members. Also, the editors of three national railway historical magazines, the chief engineer of a main line preservation and train operating company, and prominent officers of several preserved railways belong to the LMS Society. But we are not only concerned with full size matters and the written word; the founders of the LMS Society were mainly dedicated railway modellers and the Society they established in 1963 was largely aimed at enabling modellers to portray the LMS more accurately and more easily. This aspect has not been forgotten and Society members are actively involved in helping firms both large and small develop kits as well as ready to run models of LMS prototypes. Indeed, we count in our numbers the managing directors of some well-known model firms and at the time of writing are concerned with products from home and overseas. Our late President, David Jenkinson, was probably one of the best-known railway modellers in Britain and his legacy to the Society is an abiding interest in the LMS in miniature. David died in April 2004 and a personal appreciation of him written by his friend and co-author, Bob Essery, can be found by following the link David Jenkinson - an appreciation.

Although there is no 'chat line' or forum featured on the site, one of the Society's aims since its inception has been to help those who are seeking information about any aspect of the LMS. To this end we always welcome queries and will do our best either to answer them directly or to indicate other possible sources of information. In the first instance, such enquiries should be made to the Secretary, whose contact details will be found in the 'The LMS Society' page but we would ask correspondents to note certain caveats:

We do not have any staff records and are unable to give details of relatives' employment etc. Such enquiries are best directed to the National Railway Museum, the National Archive or local record offices
Whilst many of our members are contactable by email, some are only able to receive correspondence by more 'traditional' means. Hence, while requests are best made initially to the Secretary by email, it may be necessary later to put it in writing together with two stamped envelopes so that the query can be directed to the appropriate member. If so, this will be advised by the Secretary.
Please make questions as detailed as possible. The, 'Please tell me what you know about coal wagons on the Peak Forest line in the 1930s', type of enquiry is virtually impossible to answer satisfactorily whereas, 'Which privately owned coal wagons would probably have been commonly seen in the yard at Bakewell around 1935 - 1940', is much more likely to receive a meaningful response.
Our members are busy people and while we do our best to answer queries as soon as possible, it can take time to contact the right person(s) and then produce a meaningful reply from a mass of research material. Thus we may not be able to satisfy requests as quickly as we would like but will always be as fast as we can.

So, once again, welcome to our web site. I hope you enjoy your visit and if you have any suggestions for its improvement, please contact us through the email links.

David Hunt
Chairman, LMS Society

This page uses Cascading Style Sheets to present the content in the best possible manner. If you can see this message, then CSS (or JavaScript) is not enabled in your browser, and the page will not appear as the designer intended.