NBR S class
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The NBR S Class (
LNER LNER may refer to: *London and North Eastern Railway, a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1923 until 1947 *London North Eastern Railway, a train operating company in the United Kingdom since 2018 * Liquid neutral earthing resistor, a type ...
Class J37) was a class of
0-6-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and no trailing wheels. This was the most common wheel arrangemen ...
steam locomotive 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 ...
designed by William Paton Reid for freight work on the
North British Railway The North British Railway was a British railway company, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was established in 1844, with the intention of linking with English railways at Berwick. The line opened in 1846, and from the outset the company followe ...
. The engines were initially designated as B class, being a development of the standard B class locomotives designed by Reid some eight years previously, and represented the culmination of a long evolution on the NBR of powerful 0-6-0 freight engines. The new locomotives were introduced in 1914 and had
superheater A superheater is a device used to convert saturated steam or wet steam into superheated steam or dry steam. Superheated steam is used in steam turbines for electricity generation, steam engines, and in processes such as steam reforming. There ar ...
s, inside cylinders and
piston valves Piston valves are one form of valve used to control the flow of steam within a steam engine or locomotive. They control the admission of steam into the cylinders and its subsequent exhausting, enabling a locomotive to move under its own power ...
operated by
Stephenson valve gear The Stephenson valve gear or Stephenson link or shifting link is a simple design of valve gear that was widely used throughout the world for various kinds of steam engines. It is named after Robert Stephenson but was invented by his employees. ...
.


Design evolution

The North British had built large numbers of 0-6-0 freight engines of earlier classes, and during the incumbency of Matthew Holmes these reached his highly numerous C class design, consisting of 200 locomotives in total (168 of his own engines, later designated LNER class J36, plus 32 rebuilt from the highly similar 1876 design by
Dugald Drummond Dugald Drummond (1 January 1840 – 8 November 1912) was a Scottish steam locomotive engineer. He had a career with the North British Railway, LB&SCR, Caledonian Railway and London and South Western Railway. He was the older brother of the eng ...
, later designated LNER class J32). Reid set out to develop this design, and improve upon it, producing the standard
NBR B class NBR may refer to: In rail: * New Brunswick Railway, a former Canadian railway company absorbed by the Canadian Pacific Railway * North Bay Railway, a light-railway system for tourists in Scarborough, North Yorkshire * North British Railway (1844– ...
(later LNER class J35), of which 76 examples were built. They were larger and heavier than the earlier engines, and in common with Reid's common practice, had a high boiler pitch. In 1914, Reid ordered the first batch of 5 engines of his improved B class design. From 1914 to 1919, these engines were simply considered to be part of the B class, by which time around 70 had been produced. However, with a new batch ordered in 1919 Reid made several minor alterations, including an increase in working boiler pressure from 165 psi to 175 psi. These engines, together with all subsequent batches, were given a new designation, as S class. Several of the earlier locomotives were upgraded to the new 175 psi boiler pressure, and redesignated as S class. Finally, upon
Grouping Grouping may refer to: * Muenchian grouping * Principles of grouping * Railways Act 1921, also known as Grouping Act, a reorganisation of the British railway system * Grouping (firearms), the pattern of multiple shots from a sidearm See also ...
in 1923, the LNER upgraded all of the S class engines and all of the improved B class engines, to a working boiler pressure of 180 psi, and formally grouped them all together into the J37 class. The improved B class J37s and the S class J37s together totalled 104 engines.


Numbering

A total of 104 locomotives was built by the North British Railway, all of which passed to the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) in 1923, and all of which came into
British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...
(BR) ownership at
nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
in 1948. BR numbers were 64536–64639.


Performance

The improved B class (J37) and S class (J37) locomotives performed admirably on fast mainline freight services, and heavy Fife coal trains. On some parts of the network (notably the
West Highland Line The West Highland Line ( gd, Rathad Iarainn nan Eilean - "Iron Road to the Isles") is a railway line linking the ports of Mallaig and Oban in the Scottish Highlands to Glasgow in Central Scotland. The line was voted the top rail journey in th ...
), they were used for both freight and passenger duties. The engines have been described as being the most successful and the most powerful 0-6-0 tender engines ever employed in Scotland.


Preservation

All members of both the B and S classes were scrapped after withdrawal, the last of which being in 1962 and 1966 respectively.


References

* *


External links


Class J37 Details
at ''Rail UK''
NBR/LNER Reid "J37" Class 0-6-0
at BRDatabase {{LNER Locomotives S 0-6-0 locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1914 NBL locomotives Scrapped locomotives Standard gauge steam locomotives of Great Britain Freight locomotives