Steam Memories

The London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) Fowler 4F is a class of 0-6-0 steam locomotive designed for medium freight work. They represent the ultimate development of Midland Railway's six coupled tender engines. (Wikepedia)

The 4F was based on the 197-strong Midland Railway 3835 Class of 1911, with only a few modifications, primarily the adoption of left-hand drive in favour of right-hand drive. They originally had been designed by Henry Fowler, who from 1925 became CME of the LMS.
Midland Railway locomotives were notorious for their short axle-box bearings, which were prone to overheating. Why this poor design feature was perpetuated is a complete mystery but, unfortunately, the LMS 4F inherited it.

The LMS constructed 530 of the locomotives between 1923 and 1928, numbered sequentially from where the Midland engines left off from 4027. A further 45 examples were reluctantly authorised by William Stanier in 1937 at the behest of the operating department.
One Midland-built 4F, (4)3924 survives, the first locomotive to leave Woodham Brothers scrapyard in Barry, South Wales.^[1] Three LMS-built 4Fs survive, with the first-built LMS 4F No. (4)4027 is part of the National Railway Collection.

Numbers		Location	Condition	Link to preserved locomotive database
LMS	BR
3924	43924	Keighley and Worth Valley Railway	Returned to steam June 2011, returned to revenue service july 2011	43924
4027	44027	Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway	Recently transferred from the Midland Railway - Butterley, overhaul now started and making steady progress.	44027
4123	44123	Avon Valley Railway	Restoration in progress	44123
4422	44422	Nene Valley Railway	Operational, easily the most travelled of all the survivors	44422

My thanks to Wikepedia for the above

Full text can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LMS_Fowler_Class_4F