North British 4-4-2 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class H (REID) / C10 (Locobase 2292)

Data from "New Locomotives, North British Railway," The Locomotive Magazine, Vol XII (15 August 1906), p. 131. See also Steamindex, [], Richard Marsden "The Reid Class C10 and C11 (NBR I and H) 4-4-2 Atlantics", ,[], last accessed 24 June 2009; and A T Taylor, Modern British Locomotives (London: E & FN Spon, Ltd, 1907), p. 19.

WP Reid's version of an Edwardian Atlantic. Comparison with the Drummond 4-4-0s of a generation earlier shows just how much the basic design had grown. A relatively ample Belpaire firebox trailed a large boiler and steam admission came through 10" (254 mm) piston valves.

Marsden wrote that the first batch of 1906 showed oscillations at high speeds. When HA Ivatt was consulted, he recommended the removal of excess counterweighting and a speed limit of 55 mph on downhill grades. (Tough on the driver who needed make up time!) Steamindex also comments that when delivered that no turntable in the system could take them.

OS Nock (RWC IV, pl 91) notes that all of the engines were given names that fit the country through which that particular engine stud ran. Those on the Carlisle route had names like Abbotsford, Borderer, Hazeldean, Teribus, and Waverly. Other engines were Aberdonian, Bonnie Dundee, Cock o' the North, and Thane of Fife.

The last two -- Duke of Rothesay and The Lord Provost -- were delivered with superheated boilers. The others were converted, mostly in the 1920s. See Locobase 3486.

Class L / C16 (Locobase 5928)

Data and information from Richard Marsden [] (22 February 2004). See also "Superheater Tank Locomotive, North British Railway", The Locomotive, Volume XXII [22], No 281 (15 January 1916), p. 2. Works numbers were 21203-21217.

The Ls were very similar to the M-class Atlantic tanks (see Locobase 2352), but were delivered with superheaters and piston valves. The first fifteen arrrived in 1915-1916 -- with ten of these being assigned to the heaviest Glasgow trains -- and six more were produced in 1921. Ultimately, the class served a variety of sheds in Aberdeen, Dundee, and Dunfermline.

The first C16 was withdrawn in 1954 and the last left service in 1961.

Class M / C15 (Locobase 2352)

Data from Ahrons (1927), supplemented by "North British Railway", Locomotive Magazine, Volume XVIII (15 May 1912), p. 93; and information from Richard Marsden [] (22 February 2004).

Known as "Yorkshire Tanks" or "Yorkies". LM reported that these "fine-lookingengines are to be used for working short distance express trains, this accounting for the liberal water and coal capacity."

Unlike many British tanks, these were never superheated.

Used all over the former North British after the 1923 Grouping, C15s were supplanted by C16s (Locobase 5928) in some services and by other larger, six-coupled tanks. By 1948 and nationalization, many were semi-retired. Actual withdrawals began in 1954 with two "push-pull" serving the West Highland Craigendoran-Arrochar branch line (northwest of Glasgow) being the last to retire in 1960.

Class REID - superheated / C11 (Locobase 3486)

Data from Richard Marsden, "The Reid Class C10 and C11 (NBR I and H) 4-4-2 Atlantics" in his online LNER Encyclopedia at [], visited 26 September 2004

The superheated conversion of WP Reid's Atlantic (Locobase 2292). Note that the demand factors remained nearly identical, as did the tractive effort. The rebuild also retained the Belpaire firebox and 10"(254 mm) piston valves.Two of the locomotives in the class were delivered with superheated boilers in 1914. The first conversion hit the rails in May 1915, with the second following in September. Two more followed during 1917 (January and June). The rest were made over beginning in 1919 (2), 1920 (3), 1921 (5), 1923 (1), 1924 (4), and 1925 (1)

The value of the conversion lay in its use of drier steam and slightly larger pistons, which yielded the same tractive effort at lower boiler pressure. In tests against a North Eastern Z class and the Great Northern's Class 251, the superheated Hazeldean showed up with the lowest coal consumption per drawbar horsepower hour in all but the heaviest working.

On the LNER (assembled from several railways in 1923), these engines were class C11. As the Pacifics came into service in the mid-1920s, the C11s were moved to secondary passenger runs. But they weren't really suitable for the local-haul traffic normally handled by a D49. When their boiler lives began expiring in the mid-1930s, the C11s were scrapped; Dunedin was the first to go in March 1933 and St Johnstoun the last in December 1937.