Steam Train Birthday Cards - Standard Class 5
The standard class 5 were introduced to supplement and ultimately replace the various 5MT locomotives such as the Hall, B1 and Black 5 then in service on the various routes in an attempt to standardise the building and repair facilities. Ultimately 172 were built, though they never fulfilled their intended role as enginemen’s loyalties to their ‘own’ engines did not subside after Nationalisation..
Good engines, they were gradually accepted and did good work on all the regions, some even sporting the lined green livery of passenger engines. Philip D. Hawkins shows one such example on this railway greeting card.
