Harry Hoy and George Hughes

In 1899 Aspinall was appointed General Manager to the company, one of the few CME's to gain such a high position. His successor was his former deputy, Harry Hoy, whose comparatively short tenure in the post saw many innovations. His only original design, the 2-6-2 tank for heavy suburban traffic did all that was required of it but Hughes later development of the superheated 2-4-2T produced a more powerful loco that was cheaper to run so Hoy’s engines were downgraded to freight duties. Hoy also introduced the 8-wheeled tender which became standard on the 0-8-0 fleet and designed a safety valve which carried his name and was widely used by the L&Y for many years. The introduction of the “Lancashire & Yorkshire” lettering on loco tenders and tank sides in Hoy's time was a notable contribution to the livery. He left in 1904 to become General Manager at Beyer Peacock.

The last CME of the L&YR was George Hughes, who also became the first CME of the London Midland and Scottish Railway in 1923. Hughes introduced many improvements to Aspinall's designs, which generally had positive effects, such as rebuilding many 2-4-2T's with Belpaire fireboxes and eventually, superheating. His major design for the company was a large 4-6-0 intended to replace the “Highflyer” Atlantics on the heaviest passenger runs. They were known as the “Dreadnoughts”, after the battleships of the day. They were visually impressive and could pull well but tended to be heavy on coal and sluggish runners. They were rebuilt after the First World War with Walschaerts valve gear and were enormously improved machines which ranked among the best in the country. More were built in early LMS days but they did not have long lives once the Stanier 4-6-0s appeared in quantity. The photograph shows one of the engines in un-rebuilt condition.

Hughes had also introduced a small class of enormous 0-8-2T shunting tanks, and in 1906, steam railmotors, the small "loco and carriage units" used to counteract tramway competition and on quiet branchlines.

Hughes was also largely responsible for the famous “Crab” 2-6-0 mixed traffic engine, which was first built by the LMS in 1926, and lasted almost to the end of steam in Britain.

Aspinall, as General Manager together with Hoy and Hughes as CMEs, were heavily involved in the introduction of electric traction on the Liverpool-Southport services in 1904 and the Manchester-Bury line in 1916. The Liverpool-Southport route was the first inter-urban passenger electrification in the country. An experimental electric loco, on a 2-4-2 steam chassis was also built, chiefly for shunting experiments in the Aintree sorting sidings using the Southport electrification.

Below (as an example of the forward thinking of the L&YR) is a view of the Manchester-Bury stock. It is interesting to note that this stock introduced in 1916, was of all metal construction with buckeye couplings and electric lighting.

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