LNER Beyer-Garratt Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class U1 (Locobase 673)

Data from "London and North Eastern Railway-Design 02353", Beyer-Garrrat Patent Articulated Locomotives (Manchester, England: Beyer-Peacock & Company Limited, 1931), archived on flickr's Historical Railway Images at [], et seq, p. 58.

Six-cylinder engine built for the Wath-Penistone section of LNER's Worsborough branch. This bank rose 2 1/2% for 7 miles. The Garratt pushed 1,000-ton trains, replacing 3 pushers of rigid-wheelbase design.

Walschaerts gear actuated the outside cylinders, Gresley conjugated the inside cylinder of each three-cylinder set. Glover (1967) calls the combined heating surface "impressive" adding "all of it, because of the moderate length of the tubes, of real value."

[] (14 November 2003), edited by Richard Marsden, gives different numbers for the heating surfaces:

Tubes (before 1927) 1,819.5 sq ft

Tubes (after 1927) 1,616 sq ft

Firebox 223.5 sq ft

Superheater 650 sq ft

Total (before 1927) 3,581 sq ft

Total (after 1927) 3,377.47 sq ft

A couple of Marsden comments:

The soft water in the region meant that the tubes couldn't build up a protective layer of deposits, so corrosion was a problem. After a couple of tube and firebox replacements, the LNER found a chemical additive that apparently solved the problem.

Also, because the U1 was used as the pusher on coal trains, it entered and left the Silkstone tunnels last. Although respirators were offered, the crews "objected to sharing equipment, and the trial stopped."

After World War II, the U1 needed a new boiler, but the line she served was soon to be electrified. Although she was tried on the Lickey Incline, her further service was limited and she was retired in 1955 after amassing 425,213 service miles.