The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS1) was a Britishrailway company. It was formed in 1923 by the forced Grouping of over 300 separate railway companies into just four. It was an unwieldy construction, claiming to be the world's largest transport organization, and the largest commercial undertaking in Europe (although they did not say on what basis), including the largest chain of hotels. In 1938, the LMS operated 6,870 route miles of railway (excluding lines in Northern Ireland), but it was not very profitable with a rate of return of only 2.7%. It was nationalised in 1948.
The railway's main business was the transportation of freight between these major industrial centres. Particularly notable were the Toton-Brentcoal trains which took coal from the Nottinghamshire coalfield to London.
