Hull & Barnsley / LNER 0-6-0 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class B (Locobase 10157)

Data from "New Goods Engines for the Hull & Barnsley Railway," The Locomotive Magazine, Vol V (August 1900), p. 124.

This class was celebrated in the LM article for having quite large boiler-barrel diameters, "...the largest yet adopted in this country." Curiously, it cannot be said that these were larger than the run of the mill in any other respects. For Locobase's purposes, note that this shows the last 19 Bs as they were delivered. They would later be fitted with roomieer boilers still; the result is shown in Locobase 7540.

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Class J38 (Locobase 5969)

Data from LNER Encyclopedia at [] . According to Richard Marsden, this class represented an upgrade to freight haulage at the inception of the LNER. J38s were to be allocated to three different sheds including those in the Scottish Area. In the event, a preference for taller drivers resulted in the J39 (see Locobase 3772) and only the 35 for the Scottish Area were produced.

Early opinion of the J38 was adverse, in large part because much of its design came from a different heritage than the North British Railway standard learned by so many of the drivers. Eventually, says Marsden, "[t]hey became highly regarded as very strong locomotives. Their high coal consumption was made up for with their free steaming and high haulage capacity."

Gresley's K2 2-6-0s and the J39s took over mainline freight hauling by 1930, so the J38s were assigned to the Lothian-Edinburgh Dock coal service. Remarkably, these first standard locomotives of the LNER became the last to start retirements, the first leaving service in1962. The last two went in 1967.

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Class J39 (Locobase 3772)

Data from Richard Marsden, "The Gresley J39 0-6-0 Locomotives", [] in 2003 (later LNER Encyclopedia at [], last accessed 21 October 2017)..See also "Locomotives of 1926", Engineering, Volume CLXIII [73), No 1 (7 January 1927), p.5.

According to Richard Marsden, these were built in preference to the lower-drivered J38s. In fact, more locomotives of this class were produced than any other single design by Nigel Gresley. Most were built at Darlington, although 28 were supplied by Beyer, Peacock and most of the Darlingtons had boilers produced by eiterh Armstrong, Whitworth or Robert Stephenson & Sons.

Marsden describes several sub-class difference (steam reversing in the first 44, screw reversers in the next 52, for example), but comments that the class remained essentially unchanged. Two main subclasses were determined by the tender's capacity. The specifications show the smaller version for the J39/1; J39/2s trailed 5,040 US gallon (19,076 litre) tenders.

A problem that apparently never received a definitive solution was the torque imposed on the axleboxes from the crank throws being set at 90 degrees to each other (one side to the other).

Even so, they proved, says Marsden, "powerful and versatile locomotives," handling some passenger service as well as freight. When retirements began in 1959, their high maintenance cost doomed the J39s to a rapid withdrawal.