Yep, another of Nina's murals! (This one painted for the railway in March 2017). Oliver Bulleid was Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Southern Railway - basically chief designer - and he created some very distinctive locomotives for the railway. The Battle of Britain, West Country and Merchant Navy classes were all of the "4-6-2" (pacific) wheel arrangement, typical of Britain's most powerful express locomotives. However their appearance was strikingly different, with an "air-smoothed" casing designed to gain the aerodynamic advantages that the LMS and LNER were showing off with their streamlined locos of the 1930s. In BR days some of the locos were rebuilt without the air-smoothed casing, but they retained their distinctive wheels, oval smoke-box doors and other unusual design features. In Southern Railway days they were all painted green, and most continued in BR green after 1948; however some received BR blue (not the later blue applied to diesels as part of the "modernisation programme"). It's one of these blue Bulleids that's shown in Nina's mural.

The slogan "You're in the strong country" originated in advertising hoardings next to railways advertising beers from Strong's brewery of Romsey, Hampshire. (Some, a little further afield, read "You're approaching the strong country"). They showed a blue Bulleid pacific at speed, hauling a train of Pullman coaches. A similar hoarding to Swanage's can be seen at Alton, on the Mid-Hants Railway.

There are many Bulleid pacific locos preserved, and four are based at Swanage (two are currently under major overhaul, and a fifth is finally starting its initial restoration from scrapyard condition)