The London and North Eastern Railway

London and North Eastern Railway

The London and North Eastern Railway was the second-largest of the "Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain...

 (LNER) Thompson Class L1 was a class of 2-6-4

2-6-4

Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, a 2-6-4 locomotive has two leading wheels, six coupled driving wheels and four trailing wheels...

T steam locomotive

Steam locomotive

A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...

s designed by Edward Thompson

Edward Thompson (engineer)

Edward Thompson was Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North Eastern Railway between 1941 and 1946.- Biography :Edward Thompson was the son of an assistant master at Marlborough College. He was educated at Marlborough before taking the Mechanical Science Tripos at Pembroke College,...

. The prototype no. 9000 was built in 1945, but the remaining 99 were built under British Railways jurisdiction in the period 1948-1950. The information in the infobox (right) is taken from Ian Allan ABC.

Overview

The class, at least on paper, should have been very free steaming and powerful engines but, in practice, they were not suited to the work to which they were assigned. The engines had 5' 2" wheels, which would give them excellent power at low speed, such as that required for freight work, but these engines were intended for passenger use. The speeds required for suburban passenger work wore the engines out in a remarkably short time. Axleboxes, crosshead slides and crank bearings all suffered due to the high speeds.

Modifications

In an attempt to reduce wear, two experiments were tried. In May 1951, five locomotives had liners fitted to their cylinders to reduce the cylinder bore from 20 in to 18¾ in. In March 1953, five locomotives had their boiler pressure reduced from 225 psi to 200 psi. Neither experiment was a success.

Numbering

Sources were used to compile the following table:

Build date	Builder	LNER number	Original BR number	New BR number
1945	LNER	9000	69000	67701
1948	BR Darlington Works Darlington Works Darlington railway works, known in the town as North Road Shops, was built in 1863 by the Stockton and Darlington Railway in the town of Darlington in the north east of England.-NER History:The first new locomotive was built at the works in 1864...	-	69001-69015	67702-67716
1948	BR Darlington Works	-	-	67717-67730
1948-1950	NBL North British Locomotive Company The North British Locomotive Company was created in 1903 through the merger of three Glasgow locomotive manufacturing companies; Sharp Stewart and Company , Neilson, Reid and Company and Dübs and Company , creating the largest locomotive manufacturing company in Europe.Its main factories were...  and RSH Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns Ltd was a locomotive builder with works in North East England.-History:The company was formed in September 1937 when Robert Stephenson and Company, which was based in Darlington took over the locomotive building department of Hawthorn Leslie and Company, based in...	-	-	67731-67800

Modelling

Hornby

Hornby

- Australia :* Hornby Lighthouse, third oldest lighthouse in Australia on south head of Sydney Harbour,- Canada :* Hornby, Ontario, community in Halton Hills* Hornby Island, Canadian island in the Strait of Georgia near Vancouver Island- England :...

 produce the L1 class in 00 gauge with a number of different liveries, both green with LNER or BR
running numbers, and black with BR running numbers.