The NER B and B1 Classes (later

London and North Eastern Railway The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after LMS) of the " Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It operated from 1 January 1923 until nationalisation on 1 January 1948. At th ...

NER NER may refer to: * New European Recordings, a record label * ISO 3166-1 three letter code for Niger * Named entity recognition, a text processing task that identifies certain words as belonging to one class or another * Northeast Regional, an Amtr ...

Classes N8) were two classes of

0-6-2 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 two trailing wheels on one axle. The type is sometimes known a ...

tank locomotive A tank locomotive or tank engine is a steam locomotive that carries its water in one or more on-board water tanks, instead of a more traditional tender. Most tank engines also have bunkers (or fuel tanks) to hold fuel; in a tender-tank locom ...

s designed by

Thomas William Worsdell Thomas William Worsdell (14 January 1838 – 28 June 1916) was an English locomotive engineer. He was born in Liverpool into a Quaker family. Family T. W. Worsdell – normally known as William – was the eldest son of Nathaniel Worsdell (180 ...

for heavy freight and mineral on the North Eastern Railway, introduced in 1886. They were

tank engine A tank locomotive or tank engine is a steam locomotive that carries its water in one or more on-board water tanks, instead of a more traditional tender. Most tank engines also have bunkers (or fuel tanks) to hold fuel; in a tender-tank locomot ...

versions of the NER C1 Class

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 ...

, using both

simple expansion A compound engine is an engine that has more than one stage for recovering energy from the same working fluid, with the exhaust from the first stage passing through the second stage, and in some cases then on to another subsequent stage or even st ...

(Class B1) and also the von Borries configuration for two-

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 ...

compound locomotive A compound locomotive is a steam locomotive which is powered by a compound engine, a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages. The locomotive was only one application of compounding. Two and three stages were used in shi ...

s (Class B). Both types were later rebuilt using

superheated steam Superheated steam is steam at a temperature higher than its vaporization point at the absolute pressure where the temperature is measured. Superheated steam can therefore cool (lose internal energy) by some amount, resulting in a lowering of its ...

and the compounds were also rebuilt as simple expansion locomotives, and eventually formed a single class (albeit with variations in dimensions). Many of the superheated locomotives were also later returned to saturated steam as their original boilers wore out. As a result the classes have had a very complex mechanical history.

B1 Class

The first batch of ten locomotives were built at

Darlington Works Darlington Works was established in 1863 by the Stockton and Darlington Railway in the town of Darlington in the north east of England. The main part of the works, the North Road Shops was located on the northeast side of the Stockton and Darl ...

between June and November 1886. They had Joy valve gear and

slide valve The slide valve is a rectilinear valve used to control the admission of steam into and emission of exhaust from the cylinder of a steam engine. Use In the 19th century, most steam locomotives used slide valves to control the flow of steam into ...

s. They were originally designated Class B, but after 1888 were designated B1 class to differentiate them from the compound locomotives. They were given numbers which filled gaps in the sequence between 14 and 1165. An eleventh locomotive of the same design (No. 74) was built at

Gateshead Railway Works Gateshead TMD was a railway traction maintenance depot situated in Gateshead, England. The depot code was 52A during the steam era and GD later on. It was known, along with the adjacent locomotive works, as Greenesfield or Greensfield, after ...

in March 1888 for the purposes of comparison with a compound version built two months earlier (see below under B class). All of these locomotives were rebuilt (sometimes on more than one occasion) by

Wilson Worsdell Wilson Worsdell (7 September 1850 – 14 April 1920) was an English locomotive engineer who was locomotive superintendent of the North Eastern Railway from 1890 to 1910. He was the younger brother of T.W. Worsdell. Wilson was born at Monks Co ...

and/or

Vincent Raven Sir Vincent Litchfield Raven, KBE (3 December 1859 – 14 February 1934) was an English railway engineer, and was chief mechanical engineer of the North Eastern Railway from 1910 to 1922. Biography Vincent Raven was born the son of a clergy ...

between 1893 and 1924. Seven of the eleven were fitted with larger cylinders,

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. ...

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 ...

, raising the weight to . Six out of these seven were also fitted with superheating between 1919 and 1930, raising the weight to , although in two of these cases they were returned to saturated steam in 1941 and 1944.

B Class

One similar locomotive (No. 9) was constructed at Gateshead in January 1888, but fitted with the Von Borries compounding system. Its performance was tested against another new-built member of the B1 class (No.74) . As a result of these trials a further fifty were ordered., eleven of which were built at Gateshead between October and December 1888, and the remainder at Darlington between December 188 and May 1890. They were given numbers which filled gaps in the sequence between 136 and 1168. All of these locomotives were rebuilt (sometimes on more than one occasion) by Wilson Worsdell and/or Vincent Raven between 1904 and 1911, when they were returned to simple locomotives and reclassified B1. Some members of the class retained their original cylinders and Joy valve gear, whilst other were fitted with larger cylinders, or cylinders with Stephenson valve gear and piston valves. As with the other members of the B1 class many of the locomotives were with superheating between 1916 and 1927, although in several cases they were returned to saturated steam between 1941 and 1950. All members of the B and B1 classes were reclassified as one single class N8 by the LNER (despite the variations in dimensions and valve gear. They were withdrawn between 1929 and 1956.

References

* * {{LNER Locomotives B and B1 0-6-2T locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1886 Scrapped locomotives Standard gauge steam locomotives of Great Britain Freight locomotives