Over a four year period, during which practically every engine on the books would have gone through the works at least once, the effects of improved draughting  and other modifications resulted in the coal and water consumption for the whole fleet being held almost steady despite a traffic increase of more than 10% (Railtrack and others please note!)

That was why the LNWR did not begrudge paying him his enhanced salary which reached over £7000 p.a. by the end of his career; those who accused him of wasting company money on allegedly useless compounds never consider the enormous amount of progressive work he got through at that difficult period.

The Cauliflowers were important contributors to this success story, so important in fact that although the tank equivalent (the Watford Tanks ) were still in production so badly were the tender engines needed that the last batch of tanks were altered to tender engines during manufacture. Cauliflower production topped 300 by the end of the century by which time the eminent writer Charles Rous-Marten was criticising the company for excessive use of 0-6-0s on express trains, having timed Cauliflowers at 75 mph on Windermere trains.

A few weeks later he saw the principal North Wales express arrive at Crewe dead on time behind a Cauliflower and a Special DX 0-6-0  — which some of us suspect was a carefully staged ‘wind-up’ by Crewe shed, engines having been changed at Stafford or Betley Road. There was in fact no reason to fear the use of such a well-engineered locomotive as a Cauliflower on fast trains given the condition in which LNWR track was maintained. Both they and the closely related GWR ‘5700’ class continued to work surprisingly fast trains almost to the end of their respective careers.

The Cauliflower was basically a six-coupled Jumbo  which latterly embodied all the modifications to be found in that excellent design. The draughting of the locomotive was splendid, fully up to the best practice of the day, and is still impressive to modem eyes. Webb was indeed an artist and like all his designs the Cauliflower looked right because it was right.