The LNER Encyclopedia

Any information on North Eastern Rly. J Class 4-2-2s out there? There seems to be
very little - I've found none on the internet - information about these locomotives.
Specifically interested in No.1519 regarding withdrawal date. Any information
would be appreciated. Thanks.

Apologies if posted in wrong section.

The I & J classes seemed to work mostly to the south of the Tyne, i dont know much about them

The only information I have is they were long-gone before the L.N.E.R. was formed.

The picture shows N.E.R. 4-2-2 Class J 1519 at the Pump House Sidings, York. The ten 7' 7 1/4" singles were built from 1889 and used, among other duties, on the "Businessmans Flyer" - a 75 minute non-stop journey between Scarborough and Leeds.
A truly beautiful machine!

Hi Bill,

The North Eastern Railway Class J is fully covered in Ken Hoole's An Illustrated History of N.E.R. Locomotives (OPC) and the North Eastern Record Volume 3 (HMRS/NERA). There is a summary of information contained in various publications in the relevant web page of Steamindex.com, see - http://www.steamindex.com/locotype/nerloco2.htm#maclean .
If you can pay a visit to the Ken Hoole Study Centre at the Head of Steam Museum located at North Road Station, Darlington you can view the above books and also any drawings and photographs of the class that they have.
see - http://www.darlington.gov.uk/leisure-an ... dy-centre/
The North Eastern Railway Association also has drawings, photographs and copies of articles in publications such as The Engineer and Engineering . Their Archive is also located within the North Road Station site and the Archivist can be contacted at archivist@ner.org.uk .
NER No. 1519 was built in November 1889 as a Worsdell-von Borries two cylinder compound and was rebuilt as a simple in January 1895. It was withdrawn on 21 February 1920, its last shed being Hull.

Tom.

Hello Tom,

That's absolutely marvellous. Lots of info after all!

Thank you.

Glad to be of help Bill.
The NER single driver locomotives of Classes I and J were a result of the invention of steam sanding which triggered a revival of the type throughout the country and lead to some very elegant designs on the Midland, Great Northern, Great Central, Great Western and others. As train weights inevitably increased the locomotives were soon relegated from the principle expresses to secondary duties such as the Leeds to Scarborough service that you referred to. A good read on this sort lived phenomenon is Single Wheeler Locomotives: The Brief Age of Perfection, 1885-1900 by Charles Fryer. For a more technical description of the Worsdell-von Borries compound system, Compound Locomotives by John Van Riemsdijk is recommended.
Tom

The revival didn't generally last that long though - only the GCR examples made it into LNER ownership as class X4:

https://www.lner.info/locos/X/x4.php

The last examples were cascaded down to the Cheshire Lines - like most GCR express types - and that last withdrawal was in 1927.
Surprisingly, four (from a class of six) had superheaters fitted during the war years.