Great Northern Railway

© Don Marshall 2010

ELEGANT STEAM

Class A1 - No 1470 Great Northern. The very first Great Northern Pacific locomotive designed by Mr H N Gresley and introduced in 1922. As can be seen from the design it was the forerunner of the magnificent LNER Class A3 Pacifics that were the mainstay of LNER mainline services for many years. Gresley maintained that the A1 Class locomotives  could handle 600 ton trains on their own and the point was subsequently proved shortly afterwards. The outer area of the tender is a darker shade of green (GNR standard practice) and I used RGB 0-69-16 (#004510). Trials against a GWR Castle Class locomotive had the rather embarrassing result that the Castle, a 4-6-0, could more than hold its own against the LNER engines. Significant, but not profound, modifications were carried out to the A1's which transformed them into a reliable, powerful and economical engines.

Thompson ruined this locomotive after the war when he rebuilt it into a horrible fiasco under the guise of designing a new Pacific. He could have chosen any of the Class but, no, he had to choose Great Northern. What a nasty spiteful little man.