The Great Northern Railway 0-4-2 Locomotive No. 551

This is another of the locomotive drawings carried in 1964 by the Model Railway News magazine. ...

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2024/03/29/great-northern-railway-0-4-2-locomotive-no-551/

The Great Northern Railway recognised the value of 'mixed traffic' locomotives in the 19th century. Lindsay says that seventy five locos of this class were built. One source says that a total of 117 Class 18 locos were built. The Great Northern Railway Society says that 153 were built. The different sources seem to agree that fifty of the class were out-sourced from locomotive builders, the remainder were built in-house at the Great Northern's Doncaster works.

 

Thanks for publishing this item on the GNR 0-4-2 mixed traffic engines. The 0-4-2 arrangement was popular in mid-19th Century Scotland for both mixed-traffic and freight work, with both Patrick and James Stirling building substantial numbers on the G&SWR. James Stirling dropped the option on moving south to the SER, but Patrick Stirling continued with it and gave the GNR the largest population of 0-4-2 tender engines in England. The other major English users were Stroudley on the LBSCR and Adams on the LSWR.

The RCTS book by N Groves on Stirling GNR engines quotes a total of 154 built. The first 4 built in 1868-9 formed the 218-series, with shorter frames and fireboxes than the later standard. These were followed by 117 of the 18-series built 1868-79, including 50 from outside contractors (30 from Sharp Stewart, 20 from Kitson). Finally, there were 33 of the 103-series all built at Doncaster in 1882-95 with longer frames and cabs.

Although forming such a high proportion of the GNR's loco fleet at the end of the 19th Century, withdrawals became rapid in the new century, engines being replaced by new Ivatt 0-6-0s and Gresley 2-6-0s, so that the type became extinct in 1921. The LSWR Adams "Jubilee" mixed-traffic 0-4-2s, built in 1887-95 at the same time as the final series of Stirling GNR 0-4-2s, survived much longer, some until after WW2.

 

James Stirling's first proposal for what became the SER O Class 0-6-0 was for an 0-4-2; that was rejected but the design was revised into the 0-6-0 we know. Had the 0-4-2 been built, presumably it would have been very similar to the G&SWR 0-4-2s.

The SE&CR also had two odd 0-4-2s - the former LCDR "Brigand" and "Corsair". These were Sharp Stewart locos designed by Patrick Stirling for the G&SWR in 1860; with the fledgling LCDR desperate for locos, Stirling agreed that two of an order for (I think) 20 such locos could be purchased instead by the LCDR - someone made a profit along the way, since the LCDR purchase price was several hundred pounds more than the GWSR had agreed! They became in time LCDR Nos. 1 and 2 and just made it into SE&CR ownership as Nos. 460 and 461, being scrapped in 1903. They must have been capable enough to have lasted that long with little modification beyond the customary reboilering.



Tom