The LNER Encyclopedia

A friend from York visited me recently. We were talking J39s and I reminisced about my childhood on Tyneside and how I never even bothered 'spotting' them, then one day, in 1963 they were all gone, and I wished I had.
'Really?' he said, 'I remember riding out of Leeds in 1965 in a DMU and on the climb to Crossgates we passed a J39 puffing its guts out on a freight' We discussed this further until I produced the data showing the class extinct at the end of '62. So, what did he get wrong? Did he mix up his dates and really saw a J39 there but in, say 1962, or was his estimation of 1965 right and it was a J27 he saw? ( not quite the same, I know) Were there J27s at Neville Hill? I would have thought not. This is a bit of a teaser 'cos the same chap knows his stuff.

I think by 1965 all the J27's were based in the northeast except for a few which were still at York so it was probably one of these that was seen!.


50C

In a similar vein a J38 was seen at Killingworth on a Tyneside bound freight after the J39s had been withdrawn.

I doubt the date, but for the record, the Marsh Lane pilot was usually 64933 of Neville Hill.

Hazy memory but I think there were a couple of steam engines at Neville Hill after it was officially "all diesel". I think one might have been an 0-6-0 tender loco?

Could you have been thinking of these two preserved locos stored there at the end of steam?
K4 61994 The Great Marquess and N7 69621. Photo taken in October 1967 on my old box brownie!

Sedgefield: Yes those are probably the locos I'm thinking of. The K4 especially.