The LNER Encyclopedia

Has anyone got a postwar picture of this loco?

The Green Guide has it as vac fitted but no Westinghouse or steam heat.

The Hornby model has vac and steam heat, no Westinghouse.

Yeadon has no evidence of either!

I'd like to know which is correct.

65356, as GER 532, was delivered into traffic in January 1888 and was only fitted with a tender brake, this being GE practice at the time. Later batches of J15 built at Stratford were built with a steam brake and earlier locomotives were retrofitted including 532.

As LNER 7532 the locomotive was fitted with a vacuum ejector in 1933, so the 'Greenie' information is correct. Cross-checked using the British Locomotive Catalogue Volume 6, the late Bertram Baxter, Kestrel 2012 and the GER Society notes to drawings, etc.

As far as I can ascertain the wheels were not balanced either.

I expected the Green Guide to be definitive

However, it is a sufficiently odd happening that I'd like to see a photo.

Of the early batches of J15 (before 1890) it is the only one that got vacuum brakes, and there seems to be no obvious reason - even in the 30's I'd hardly have thought J15's were candidates for fast fitted goods work. The others retro-fitted were clearly intended for passenger work at least some of the time - that doesn't seem to be the case with 65356 .

Well, I have been completely unable to locate photos of this loco. The Hornby model has both vac brakes and steam heat. I'm loathe to modify the model unless I can get some sort of photographic confirmation.

George Powell photographed 65356 at Marks Tey and Long Melford on passenger trains on 26th and 31st July 1951. (Ref AW1 4/28, AW2 4/32, AW2 4/33-4 and AW3 5/11). The photographs have been given to the Great Eastern Railway Society.

If you go onto the GERS web site and under Contacts use "General Enquiries" but address enquiry to Lyn D Brooks, GERS Locomotive Co-ordinator and see if copy prints can be made available. Lyn can also probably address your original query.

Paul