In Main Line No.161 I looked at Beyer Peacock,the company. In this issue, I will look at thelocomotives that company built for the GCR andits antecedents.

Before embarking on an examination of thelocomotives, it is worth looking at how therailway company, as we recognise it, came to exist.

The origins of the Great Central Railway (GCR)can be traced back through the Manchester,Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR) tothe Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne andManchester Railway (SA&MR - incorporated on5th May, 1837) and prior schemes some of whichfailed to come to fruition. However, it was theamalgamation of the SA&MRwith the Great Grimsby andSheffield Junction Railway(GG&SJR - incorporated on 30th

June, 1845), the Grimsby DocksCompany (incorporated on 8th

August, 1845) and the Sheffieldand Lincolnshire JunctionRailway (S&LJR - incorporatedon 3rd August, 1846) which

enabled the combined company to adopt the nameof the MS&LR (incorporated on 27th July, 1846)coming into general use on 1st January, 1847. Thenew company was thus able to link themanufacturing powerhouse and port ofManchester with Grimsby (and ultimatelyImmingham in 1912), New Holland and the NorthSea. In doing so they were able to transport goodsand passengers from the Atlantic to the North Seaand onwards to Continental Europe and vice versa.The products of the Manchester cotton mills andthe coal from the Yorkshire coalfields thus gainedaccess to these markets. Were the pioneers menof enterprise and vision? In 2014 a high speedroute linking Liverpool with Hull, HS3, wasproposed. Did someone say MS&LR?

Beyer Peacock Locomotives for the GreatCentral Railway - A brief summary by Dennis Wilcock

No.215 built in 1865 wasone of a batch of fourlocomotives originallyintended for theSardinian Railways.They were the firstlocomotives BeyerPeacock supplied to theMS&LR. Note the brassmakers nameplate onthe forward driving wheelsplasher. ANDREWDOW COLLECTION

The elegant Class 23 designedby Charles Sacré. No.246 of1867 rests on the turntable atHayfield. This outside frameddesign was the most numerousof the 0-6-0 goods locomotivesdesigned by Sacré. ANDREWDOW COLLECTION

It was on 1st August, 1897, as the LondonExtension was being built, that the companyadopted the more fitting title of Great CentralRailway, reflecting its new status as a trunk routeinto London.

Throughout this time and up to the Grouping in1923, the company had to equip itself with thelocomotives to operate its ever-expandingservices. In stark contrast to today’s fragmentedrailway system, the railway companies, right upto the demise of British Rail in 1991, had a totallydifferent philosophy. They sought to own everyaspect of their business right from the land onwhich the railway ran, the track and infrastructureand the carriages, wagons and locomotives. Theyfurther wished to own the track and infrastructuremaintenance facilities and the means ofmanufacturing, repairing and maintaining theirown carriages, wagons and locomotives. TheGCR and others went further by acquiring a fleetof steamers that plied up and down the Englishcoast and across to Europe. As a result, they had

the control of traffic well beyond the bounds ofthe railway and thus benefited from the increasedrevenue that it brought.

The railway companies’ ambitions were notlimited to land and sea. In the 1930s the GreatWestern Railway established air services. InMarch, 1934, the GWR combined with the LNER,LMS, SR and Imperial Airways to form RailwayAir Services (RAS). In 1946, the governmentfearing that the railway companies werebecoming transport conglomerates withmonopolistic powers, formed the state ownedBritish European Airways Corporation (BEA)and the services of RAS were absorbed into thatcompany.

Concentrating now on the locomotives,independent builders were involved in twoperiods of construction - that before and that afterthe railway companies had established their ownmanufacturing facilities. In the case of theMS&LR Gorton Works, the Gorton Tank, had

Beyer Peacock worksphotographs.Top: An un-numberedClass 15 2-4-0 of 1865originally intended forSardinian Railways.Left: Class 23 0-6-0No.247 of July, 1867 inWorks Grey without itstender.BOTH: MUSEUM OFSCIENCE & INDUSTRY/SCIENCE & SOCIETYPICTURE LIBRARY

been established in 1848 by Richard Peacock butwas fully engaged in the repair and maintenanceof locomotives, carriages and wagons. It was notuntil 1858 that Gorton manufactured its firstlocomotives - two Class 5 0-6-0s to be followedin 1859 by a further two members of the class. Sofor the period from 1841, when the firstlocomotive, a 0-4-2, was built by Kirtley for theSA&MR, to 1858, locomotive building was in thehands of the independent builders. During thatperiod a total of 125 locomotives were built forthe SA&MR, GG&SJR and MS&LR.

Table 1 shows the locomotive builders for theMS&LR/GCR. Up to 1858 it reads like a veritableWho’s Who of early locomotive builders. In orderof first locomotive built the companies were asfollows:

1841 - Kirtley - Robert Stephenson

1842 - Sharp Roberts1843 - Sharp Bros the company formed whenthe partnership at Sharp Roberts was dissolved

and where Charles Frederick Beyer becameChief Engineer.1846 - Fenton Craven where Richard Peacockserved an apprenticeship1847 - Fossick & Hackworth

- W J & J Garforth - Tulk & Ley

1848 - Rayne & Burn - E B Wilson

1849 - R & W Hawthorn - William Fairburn & Sons

1853 - Sharp Stewart the company thatemanated from Sharp Bros when John Sharpretired in 1852 and Charles Patrick Stewart tookover and the year that Beyer left the company.1856 - George England

Many of the names will be familiar but some lessso. Fenton Craven & Co is perhaps one of thelesser known companies. It had its origins in theRailway Foundry in Hunslet, Leeds and was

Left: GCR Class 9F (LNERN5) 0-6-2T No.542 ofFebruary, 1894 standsoutside Gartsides (BrooksideBrewery) Ltd at Gortonc1920.Below: Classmates No.532(December, 1893) and 519(September, 1893) outsideManchester London Roadc1920. The two locomotiveswere part of a batch of 66built over the period 1893/94.BOTH: P F COOKE/RAILARCHIVE STEPHENSON

formed in 1846 but was taken over and becameE B Wilson later in the same year.

Another of the lesser known companies is Tulkand Ley. An iron mining company, in 1843 theyestablished an engineering works at Lowca nearWhitehaven. They are best known for building

Crampton locomotives which had the singledriving axle behind the firebox, enabling them tohave very large driving wheels. The twolocomotives purchased by the MS&LR were ofthat design. They were not successful.

Rayne & Burn were agents and almost certainlysub-contracted the building of thelocomotive credited to them.

1820 to 1850 was a period of veryrapid industrialisation and companieswith some engineering expertisebecame involved in locomotivebuilding. Some were successful butmany were not. Steam technology hadto be mastered as did the machineryand processes required to build aworking locomotive. It is quiteremarkable how much success wasachieved in the embryonic industry.In 1846, Charles Frederick Beyerreported that one of his locomotives,No.25, a precursor of the famousSharp Goods, had hauled 101 wagonsweighing 597 tons over a distance of29 miles at an average speed of13.7mph. In the period between May,1846 and October, 1847, thelocomotive ran 40,222 miles with anaverage coke consumption (earlysteam locomotives used coke and notcoal) of 39.74 lbs per mile. Thesewere prodigious feats from the earliestdays of steam and no doubt gave theSA&MR the confidence to buy somany of the Sharp products in itsearliest days.

Of course, not everything was sosuccessful. The first three

Builder Build Period Number BuiltMS&L/MS&L(S)/GCR 1858-1922 926Beyer Peacock 1865-1922 282Neilson & Co/Neilson, Reid 1865-1902 171Kitson & Co. 1859-1912 130North British 1905-1913 62Sharp Stewart 1853-1903 60Sharp Bros 1843-1850 52Vulcan Foundry 1903-1921 47Burnham, Williams 1900 20R & W Hawthorn 1849-1850 18Yorkshire Engine Co 1904-1906 15William Fairburn & Sons 1849-1859 12Robert Stephenson 1841-1853 11E B Wilson 1848-1865 9W J & J Garforth 1847-1849 8Manning Wardle 1876-1883 6Fossick & Hackworth 1847-1848 5Sharp Roberts 1842 3Kirtley 1841 3Tulk & Ley 1847-1848 2Fenton Craven 1846 1George England 1856 1Rayne & Burn 1848 1

Table 1 - Locomotive Builders for the MS&LRand GCR

GCR 9H Class(LNER J10) No.832built in February,1897. This Pollittdesign was theforerunner of thefamous Pom Pomand continued inproduction until thatdesign emerged in1901. ANDREWDOW COLLECTION

locomotives purchased in 1841 from Kirtley werenot a success.

As was seen in the first part of this series, from1858 onwards the independent builders fulfilledthe role of building, repairing and maintaininglocomotives when Gorton was full to capacity.

Table 1 shows the list of locomotive builders andthe number they built for the MS&LR/GCR fromthe beginning in 1841 to the end of 1922 when

the GCR was absorbed into theLNER at the Grouping. From thetotal of 1845 locomotives built itis notable that the total oflocomotives built at the GortonTank was 915 with a further 11being built at the company’sSheffield locomotive shed(MS&LR(S)). The period overwhich the companies built thelocomotives is also given in thetable. From 1923 onwards theLNER concentrated locomotivebuilding at Darlington andDoncaster and Gorton wasrelegated to a repair andmaintenance facility.

Most notable for the purposes ofthis item is the fact that BeyerPeacock heads the list oflocomotives built by theindependent builders at 282; farin excess of the nearest rival, theNeilson companies at 171.

In the case of Beyer Peacock,who first built locomotives in1855 for the Great WesternRailway, the first locomotives forthe MS&LR, four Class 15 2-4-0s designed by LocomotiveSuperintendent Charles ReboulSacré (the son of a Huguenotrefugee), were not built until1865. (Note: These were not thesame class as the Class 15s builtby Burnham, Williams & Co in1900 at the Baldwin Works inPhiladelphia, USA. The

MS&LR/GCR practice of re-using vacant classand locomotive numbers has been mentioned inthese pages before). From that point on, ordersfrom the MS&LR and GCR were intermittentwith the pattern generally representing the periodsof famine and feast for the independent builders.

The full list of locomotives built by BeyerPeacock for the ML&SR and the GCR is givenin Table 2 in date order. Manufacture coveredlocomotive design right from the earliest days of

Year GCRClass

LNERClass

Designer WheelArrangement

NumberBuilt

1865 15 Sacré 2-4-0 41867 23 Sacré 0-6-0 201893 9F N5 Parker 0-6-2T 171894 9F N5 Parker 0-6-2T 251896 9F N5 Parker 0-6-2T 21896 9H J10 Pollitt 0-6-0 391897 9H J10 Pollitt 0-6-0 271898 11A D6 Pollitt 4-4-0 21898 9F N5 Parker 0-6-2T 121898 9G F2 Pollitt 2-4-2T 101898 9O N5 Parker 0-6-2T 11899 11A D6 Pollitt 4-4-0 181900 9F N5 Parker 0-6-2T 161901 9F N5 Parker 0-6-2T 61903 8B C4 Robinson 4-4-2 21903 8C B1 Robinson 4-6-0 11903 9J J11 Robinson 0-6-0 101904 8 B5 Robinson 4-6-0 81904 8B C4 Robinson 4-4-2 51904 8C B1 Robinson 4-6-0 11904 9J J11 Robinson 0-6-0 151906 8F B4 Robinson 4-6-0 101906 8G B9 Robinson 4-6-0 101907 8H S1 Robinson 0-8-4T 21907 9L C14 Robinson 4-4-2 121908 8H S1 Robinson 0-8-4T 21922 9Q B7 Robinson 4-6-0 5

Table 2 - Locomotives built by Beyer Peacock for theMS&LR and the GCR

Sacré through to the first andsecond periods of Robinson’sdesigns. The MS&LR/GCRused various titles for itsengineers in charge oflocomotive matters. Forcompleteness they are listed below.

1841 - 1848 - Richard Peacock1848 - 1859 - William Grindley Craig1859 - 1886 - Charles Reboul Sacré1886 - 1893 - Thomas Parker1894 - 1899 - Harry Pollitt1900 - 1922 - John George Robinson

It is not intended to discuss every design as thatwould take rather more space than is available butto concentrate on the more significant designs.Notable are the two designs of Sacré neither ofwhich lasted into the LNER period. The Class 15was an inside-framed locomotive. The fourpurchased in 1865 were originally destined forthe Sardinian Railways. They were put to workon the North Lincolnshire lines. No more of theclass were purchased by the MS&LR.

The Class 23 was a double-framed goodslocomotive and was the most numerous of Sacré’s

0-6-0 designs. 98 were built over the period from1859 to 1867 with Beyer Peacock building a batchof 20 in 1865. It was a period of rapid increase inthe railway’s locomotive stock. The double framedesign was much favoured by early locomotivebuilders including Richard Peacock. The frameswere of the sandwich type with the two ½” plateseither side of a 3½” wooden plank.

By the time Beyer Peacock built anotherlocomotive for the MS&LR the year was 1893and locomotive design had moved onconsiderably. The class was the GCR 9F which,in its various developed forms, was classified N5by the LNER. It was designed by Thomas Parkerand was a development of his GCR 9A Class(LNER N4) of 1889. The 9Fs differed principallyfrom the 9As by having Stephenson link motioninstead of Joy valve gear and a Belpaire fireboxinstead of the previous round top design. In factthis was the first British locomotive design to

adopt the Belpaire boilerand represented a majorinnovation by theML&SR. This type ofboiler was very widelyadopted by the GCR and

Pollitt designed GCR Class11A (LNER D6) No.871 builtby Beyer Peacock inFebruary,1899 atManchester Central c1908,as rebuilt by Robinson. Thelocomotives were intendedfor the London Extensionexpresses. JOHN QUICKCOLLECTION

GCR Class 11A No.875built by Beyer Peacockin March, 1899 atTrafford Park Shedc1918. Seen with asuperheated boiler and acast numberplate on thecabside as opposed tothe painted version onNo.871 above. REALPHOTOGRAPHS

all British main line railways throughout the 20th

century. It is interesting to speculate how muchBeyer Peacock influenced the choice of theBelpaire boiler as they had been building suchboilers for the overseas market for the previous20 years.

The 9Fs were the most numerous of the GCRclasses built by Beyer Peacock. From 1893 to1901 129 were built, 79 by Beyer Peacock.

Along with the earlier 9A class, 55 of which werebuilt, the 9Fs were designed for short goodsworkings and shunting duties and spent much oftheir early years on coal and steel trains in theSheffield area. After the Grouping in 1923, theywere increasingly used on local passenger trains.They were essentially a tank engine version of the0-6-0 Class 9H (J10) goods locomotive with bothclasses of locomotive being built in a largeacceleration of locomotive building to cope withthe increased goods traffic onthe railway and the shortfall ofsuitable locomotives.

Harry Pollitt became ML&SRLocomotive Engineer in 1894

but continued the productionof former Parker designs. Itwas not until 1896 that heproduced locomotives of hisown design; one of the firstbeing the 0-6-0 goodslocomotive of Class 9H(LNER J10). Beyer Peacockwere heavily involved in the

production of these locomotives, 39 beingproduced in 1893 and 27 in 1894. As with the 9Fsthe company built a high proportion of the totalclass numbers of 106.

1893 and 1894 represented the peak in BeyerPeacock production for the ML&SR/GCR. Afterthat, when locomotives were built for the railway,the numbers were at a much more modest level.

However, production did continue and in 1898/99they built 20 locomotives of the 11A (D6) class.The class was part of a long line of GCRdevelopment of the 4-4-0 for express passengeruse which culminated in 1919 with the RobinsonClass 11F Improved Director. The developmenthad begun in 1887 when Thomas Parkerintroduced his Class 2. It was the first GCRexpress locomotive to have inside frames.Readers will be familiar with the project to builda brand new Class 2, No.567 and thus see a

GCR Class 9J (LNER J11)No.222 built in March, 1904at Whetstone on 26th March,1910. It is working a DownClass A goods; a London toGrimsby empty fish train.Whetstone station is behindthe camera. KEN NUNN/LCGB

GCR Class 8B (C4) 4-4-2“Jersey Lily” No.194, builtby Beyer Peacock on23rd December, 1903leaves Brackley Viaductwith an Up express c1905.LGRP12176/JOHNQUICK COLLECTION

significant point in the history of GCR locomotivedevelopment..

The Class 2 was followed in 1895 when HarryPollitt introduced his Class 11. It was the firstexpress locomotive in Britain to use a Belpaireboiler which had been developed by BeyerPeacock and had 7’ 0’’ driving wheels as opposedto the 6’ 9’’ wheels of the Class 2.

The Class 11A (D6) was introduced in 1897 anddiffered from the Class 11 in having pistoninstead of slide valves. They were intended forthe fast lightweight expresses on the LondonExtension. The previous 4-4-0s hadbeen used on the Manchester -King’s Cross expresses working toGrantham before being taken overby GNR locomotives. 33locomotives were built with the first13 built in the GCR workshops atGorton. Beyer Peacock werecontracted to build the last 20. The

GCR were desperate to have sufficientlocomotives to operate the London Extension butunfortunately at the time, Beyer Peacock wasembroiled in a long strike. The GCR put in placeplans to start the building of some of thelocomotives to be handed over to Beyer Peacockwhen the strike was settled. It is not clear how farthis progressed as all 20 locomotives bore theBeyer Peacock works plate.

In any review of GCR locomotives it would bedifficult not to mention the ubiquitous 9J (J11)Pom Pom, 174 examples of which were built.

GCR 8G (LNER B9) 4-6-0, a smallwheeled version of the Class 8F,at Lincoln shed on 19th July, 1924with its LNER No.6108 and withGCR style numberplate on itscabside. It was built in September,1906 and numbered 1108. A WCROUGHTON/RAIL ARCHIVESTEPHENSON

Edwardian elegance at its best. GCR Class 8F (LNER B4) 4-6-0 No.1096 in pristine condition atNottingham Victoria with an up train c1923. T G HEPBURN/RAIL ARCHIVE STEPHENSON

Since much has be said about this class in MainLine, suffice to say that Beyer Peacock built 25.

One of the most famous of GCR classes was the8B (LNER C4) of which Beyer Peacock built twoin 1903 and a further five in 1904. The 4-4-2Atlantic wheel arrangement was used in perhapsJ G Robinson’s most celebrated design, noted forits exceptional aesthetic appearance. At the sametime Beyer Peacock built two 4-6-0 locomotivesof GCR Class 8C (LNER B1) for directcomparison with the 8Bs which could, if foundnecessary, be converted to 4-6-0s. This nevertranspired, the 4-4-2s being very successful.

The next class to come under the spotlight is theClass 8F (B4). These 4-6-0 locomotives wereintroduced with the cutting of first sod for the newdock at Immingham and the first was named assuch; the whole class being known by that port’sname. All ten were built in a two month period in1906 by Beyer Peacock so it might be interestingto debate how much it was a Beyer Peacock asopposed to a GCR design. They were certainly avery elegant design. They were intended for thefish trade from Grimsby and fast goods servicesfrom Immingham to London and were regularperformers on the London Extension. Theyappear very similar to the Class 8 (B5) Fishengines, eight of which had been built by BeyerPeacock in 1904 but were in fact a smallerwheeled version of the Class 8C (B1). Althoughthe Imminghams did perform on fish and goodstrains, they were more often seen on passengerwork.

Also in 1906, again in a two month period, BeyerPeacock built all 10locomotives of the 8G (B9)class. These were indeed asmall wheeled version of theClass 8F the diameter of thedriving wheels being reducedfrom 6’ 7’’ to 5’ 4’’ making the

class much more clearly a goods locomotive. Alsoreduced was the length of the firebox comingdown 9’’ to 7’ 9’’. Even with their smaller wheelsthey were still employed on fast goods trains.

The GCR Class 8H (S1) was a brute of a machineintended for hump-shunting in the newmarshalling yard at Wath on Dearne in SouthYorkshire. They were based on the GCR’s Class8A (Q4) 0-8-0 but had three cylinders to smoothout shunting moves and a wider boiler. They werealso fitted with power reversers because of thefrequent changes in direction inherent in shuntingduties. Beyer Peacock built all four of the originallocomotives in 1907/08 with Gresley building afurther two, with modifications, in 1932. TheWath yard had two humps and the Wath Bankersas locomotives became known, shunted in pairswith two to each hump. In 1930, Gresley fitted abooster to one of the locomotives but the resultswere not entirely successful.

It is sometimes said that there was petty frictionbetween the GCR and Beyer Peacock but therewas always close liaison between the companies.Together, they produced some very finelocomotives. The friction was no doubt that oftwo companies in such close proximity recruitingstaff from the same area and no doubt staffmoving across the tracks as opportunities in thetwo companies opened and closed. The frictioncannot have been that serious as evidenced by thenumber of locomotives produced by BeyerPeacock for the ML&SR/GCR over a 57 yearperiod. On the Grouping both Sir Sam Fay andJohn George Robinson themselves moved acrossthe tracks.

GCR Class 8H (LNER S1)0-8-4T No.6170, a WathBanker, at Mexborough shedon 13th April, 1925.Originally numbered 1170 itwas built in December, 1907.A W CROUGHTON/RAILARCHIVE STEPHENSON