Great eastern 4-4-0 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class 11A/ D6 (Locobase 7475)

Data from [], the 4-4-0 entries in Richard Marsden's online LNER Encyclopedia, last accessed on 1 March 2006.GCR Rolling Trust website -- [], accessed 31 May 2007 -- for weights and wheelbases.

See Locobase 8971 for the original, saturated-boiler 11A. When the class began refitting with superheated boilers in 1912, a 15-element superheater was fitted. This was replaced over time by the 18-element version shown in the specs, but not all 11s were so fitted. The Smith-design piston valves that originally fed steam proved troublesome and several replacements proved unsatisfactory until a Robinson piston valve first installed in 1912 became standard.

Marsden describes the 11's work on the newspaper trains that ran from London to Manchester to supplant the unpopular Manchester Guardian (which opposed the Boer War then in progress). In 1899, one train covered the 206 miles in 220 minutes including stops, a brisk 56-mph average.

As Cheshire-based locomotives (from about 1910 on), Marsden says, the class "...acquired a strong reputaton as a reliable locomotive that could maintain punctual timings. On a number of occasions, bookings had minutes trimmed off or extra stops inserted. It is telling that the D6s [as the LNER would classify them] were capable of maintaining these tight timings on a regular basis."

Although withdrawals began in 1930, nine of the class served into the World War II years. The last retired on the last day of 1947.