The GCR Class 1 was a class of

steam locomotives A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

Great Central Railway The Great Central Railway in England was formed when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897, anticipating the opening in 1899 of its London Extension. On 1 January 1923, the company was grouped into the ...

, and introduced to service between December 1912 and 1913. In the

1923 grouping The Railways Act 1921 (c. 55), also known as the Grouping Act, was an Act of Parliament enacted by the British government and intended to stem the losses being made by many of the country's 120 railway companies, by "grouping" them into four la ...

, they all passed to the London and North Eastern Railway which placed them in class B2. Their classification was changed to B19 in 1945, and all had been retired by the end of 1947.

Service

Although commonly believed that they were intended as express passenger locomotives, the Great Central actually classified and used them as mixed traffic locomotives. The minutes of the Locomotive Committee show that they were ordered as a superheated version of the 8F (''Immingham'') class mixed traffic locomotives. They were described as mixed traffic locomotives in the contemporary Great Central publication ''Per Rail'', which promoted the company's goods services. When new, three of the class – 423, 425 and 428 – were painted in GCR's standard green passenger livery, while the other three – 424, 426 and 427 – were painted in the lined black goods livery; all were green by the end of 1922. Their initial allocations included the 'Pipe trains', the vacuum-brake fitted express goods services between Manchester and London, among the most important services on the Great Central. There is no evidence that they were intended to challenge the contemporary 11E (Director) class 4-4-0s for the generally light express passenger services of the pre-1914 years on the London Extension.

Alleged problems

It has been claimed that the GCR Class 1 had problems in service which led to their alleged demotion from express passenger use, but there appears to be no evidence to support these claims. The design of the fire grate and ash pan was very similar to, for example, the later Gresley K3 2-6-0s, and their

firebox Firebox may refer to: *Firebox (steam engine), the area where the fuel is burned in a steam engine *Firebox (architecture), the part of a fireplace where fuel is combusted *Firebox Records Firebox Records was a Finnish record label based in S ...

es were deep and relatively large for their grate area. Overheating troubles with

axlebox A bogie or railroad truck holds the wheel sets of a rail vehicle. Axlebox An ''axle box'', also known as a ''journal box'' in North America, is the mechanical subassembly on each end of the axles under a railway wagon, coach or locomotive; ...

es have been alleged, related to the large force from the inside

cylinder A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infin ...

s. Robinson in fact took care to make the coupled boxes as large as possible, on the two leading axles and on the trailing set. A more likely source of initial trouble was the marine-type

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s fitted to the first five, since the sixth reverted to strap and cotter type.

Loco details

References

* * *

External links

LNER Encyclopedia

{{DEFAULTSORT:GCR Class 01 4-6-0 locomotives 2′C h2 locomotives 01 Railway locomotives introduced in 1912 Scrapped locomotives Standard gauge steam locomotives of Great Britain Passenger locomotives Great Central Railway 4-6-0s