- ‘B’ Class 0-8-0 Locomotive class
- Webb’s
 second type of 0-8-0 goods engine, of which 170 were built from 1901. They were 4-cylinder compound engines easily identified by their long overhang at the front and a piano-shaped casing at the front of the inside cylinders which covered the rocking levers which operated the valve for the outside cylinders from the inside valve gear. 
- Baby Scot
- Colloquial name for the ‘Patriot’ class 3-cylinder 4-6-0 locomotives designed by Sir Henry Fowler for the LMS, the first few of which included components from scrapped LNWR ‘Claughton’ class engines. The name came into use because visually the engines resembled a smaller version of Fowler’s ‘Royal Scot’ class locomotives.
- Back Light
- The lamps of semaphore signals were required to have small white back lights which were obscured by the movement of the signal arm from the horizontal, so that at night the signalman could see that the signal arm had responded to the lever. Back lights were also required on ground signals as a safety measure to indicate their presence.
- Badge Porter
- Working under supervision of the railway staff but paid by the passenger, according to an agreed scale, mainly carrying luggage outside the station area.
- Bag (1)
- The large hose through which water from a water column was fed to the tank of an engine or tender was commonly called “the bag”.
- Bag (2)
- A flexible hose used for connecting vacuum brake pipes between vehicles.
- Baker Valve Gear
- A steam locomotive valve gear similar to Walschaerts valve gear, but one where sliding surfaces are eliminated.
- Baker, William (1817—1878)
- In 1852 was appointed by the LNWR as engineer of the Southern Division to succeed R.B. Dockray. On the death of Robert Stephenson in 1859 Baker was appointed chief engineer of the LNWR.
- Ballast
- Railway ballast provides both the foundation and drainage for railway track. Many steam-era railways used ash, gravel or even shingle as ballast, but on important lines the LNWR used (expensive) crushed North Wales granite and made an advertising feature of its track as “dustless permanent way”.
- Ballast wagon
- A wagon, normally a drop-side wagon, for the conveyance of ballast — commonly, on the LNWR, from Penmaenmawr.
- Banana Van
- A heated or insulated van for transporting bananas.
- Bank
- Any severe or long (or both severe and long) gradient was commonly known as a bank, which is why an assisting engine was described as a “banking” engine.
- Banking Engine
- An engine used to assist a train up a gradient (or bank) if the train was too heavy for the train engine alone. A banking engine would often not be attached to the train, but simply push from the rear, allowing the train to draw away at the top of the gradient. On the LNWR any engine assisting a train, whether attached in front or pushing from the rear, was described as “banking”.
- Bar Frame
- Locomotive frames built up from iron or steel bars, used on some early locomotives, soon abandoned in Britain in favour of plate frames; they remained in use rather longer in the USA.
- Barlow, William Henry (1812—1902)
- Chief Civil Engineer for the Midland Railway between 1844 and 1858. His works included the MR line from St. Pancras, London to Bedford including St. Pancras Station itself.
- Baxter, Bertram (?—1966)
- ‘British Locomotive Catalogue 1825-1923’ Compiled by Bertram Baxter, edited by David Baxter. (Moorland Publishing Company 1979). Vol.1 is the index, Vol.2a and Vol.2b list every locomotive ever built by or for the LNWR and its constituent companies.
- BCK Coach
- British Railways’ nomenclature for Brake Composite Korridor (sic) coach, that is with accommodation for more than one class of passenger and also a guard’s brake compartment. (K used to differentiate Corridor from Composite).
Brake Composites (or Brake Tri-Composites before about 1910) were often used as through carriages. For example in the years before 1914 the “Corridor” at 2pm from Euston conveyed BCKs for Manchester Oxford Road via Knutsford (detached at Crewe) and for Workington (detached at Preston).
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