The Great Eastern Railway's big 0-6-0 tender locomotives

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Thank you for the entries for these, Richard. Rather attractive engines, in their way.

I suppose, but do not know, that the GER, under Holden and Hill, favoured staying with 0-6-0 tender engines because they would fit on to the GER's numerous 45ft turntables, which the ROD 2-8-0's would not.

Fitting a 4-4-0's boiler and cylinders into an 0-6-0 (D14 - J17) is one thing, but squeezing even a small 4-6-0's boiler and cylinders (B12 - J20) into the same wheelbase is quite an exercise in "getting a quart into a pint pot", espescially given the GER's tendency to "over-spec" the running gear, which was always quite massive.

Hill has the odd distinction of having produced the UK's most powerful
0-6-0 until Bulleid, and the most powerful 0-4-0T of all time - definitely a supporter of the "big engine" policy!

[CVR1865]

also one loco one train working, or is that the big engine policy?

[richard]

Glad you like the pages

Length might have something to do with it, but the GER also had weight problems. One would expect a 2-8-0 or 0-8-0 would have had a lower axle loading for the same size engine.

I think it was the 10-15 years before Grouping when the companies started to naturally look at 2-8-0s. The NER had developed a nice line of 0-8-0s. The GCR had the RODs, Gresley built the O1s and O2s for the GNR. The NBR considered it on two occasions, but decided that route availability was a problem, or Grouping was too imminent. So I think the GER may have started to consider it or would have done soon.

Note that a lot of their freight was agricultural or fish, so they didn't really need a lot of heavy mineral engines. If anything, the priority would have been for fast freight locos for fish and other perishables.


Richard

[Colombo]

Richard, Andrew,

The GE section had a shortage of large turntables, which is why many of the B17s ran with the shorter GER tenders instead of the LNER Group Standard design. In later years, the LNER and BR provided some larger TTs, but many branchlines still lacked one large enough to turn an 8 coupled loco or a B1.

Colombo

[CVR1865]

I thought the LNER started to run O2's into stratford from quite early on. Also there are no coal mines in East Anglia so where did they get their coal from and surely they must have needed the import of heavy minerals for coal into the region?

[richard]

Yes you still need to bring coal (and freight) in, but a line in a mining area (eg. NER) would need to ship a lot more coal than a line that only imports it (eg. the GER).

Even the Wisbech & Upwell carried coal - it took it in to the fens. However, the W&U was only really stretched at harvest time when it was a case of "potatoes out".


Richard

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

If I recall correctly, the GER's breakthrough into profitability (it was only ever just barely profitable) was associated with the northern extension, with running rights to York, which gave it a share of the heavy coal traffic southbound. (It also allowed the GER to run a Harwich Boat Train from York, and to advertise expresses on the "Cathedral Route" (Ely, Peterborough, York!)

I think the big 0-6-0s were really for coal traffic.

Fish from Lowestoft and Yarmouth was "fitted" freight, hauled by passenger types, and was a very high earner - freight rates around 37s6d a ton into Billingsgate. Speed was vital as the catch had to meet the early morning market - by the afternoon the price would have crashed. The Rev W Awdry's "Flying Kipper" has it about right!

[CVR1865]

Are you aware of anyother freight that gave the GER a major source of income?

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Nice question!

The fish trade from Lowestoft and Yarmouth was good business, certainly - both these fishing ports, like Hull and Grimsby, further north, were the creation of the railway companies - the Barking fishing fleets moved there when the railway arrived, as the Thames was becoming too polluted for live fish to survive the journey to Billingsgate in a smack's well, and the ports were much nearer the newly discovered trawling grounds around the Dogger Bank.

The GER allowed iced fish to get to Londan a day, maybe two days, sooner than would have been the case otherwise.

However, the GER did not go as far as the Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (later re-named the Great Central) did, and actually BUILD the ports for the fishing fleet (perhaps accounting for the MS&L's nickname, "Money Sunk and Lost!")

I suspect that cutting into the coal traffic south into London was indeed the best move the GER ever made, so far as freight went, and most of its other freight movements were unexcitingly agricultural, with a couple of pick up freights a day on most lines employing all those J15's throughout the LNER's existence. But the coal had to go everywhere on the GER - every station had a siding or two with coal stacks allocated to local merchants.