This is a story about a railway that couldn’t make up its mind. For years they argued over what sort of locomotives to use. There were those who wanted to carry on in their old ways with small, boring locomotives that would need help from one or two others for climbing hills. Then there were those who were looking at the other side of Britain and seeing Nigel Gresley’s powerful and attractive ‘Pacifics’ and thinking they should have the same. The trouble was they had no-one who could design one like it.