The London and North Eastern Railway

London and North Eastern Railway

The London and North Eastern Railway was the second-largest of the "Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain...

 (LNER) Thompson Class Q1 was a class of 0-8-0T steam locomotive

Steam locomotive

A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...

s. They were rebuilds of the GCR Class 8A (LNER Class Q4) 0-8-0s. Thirteen were rebuilt between 1942 and 1945. All passed to British Railways in 1948 and they were numbered 69925-69937. The sources for the information in the infobox (right) are.

Overview

The locomotives had outside cylinders with inside valves and inside Stephenson valve gear

Stephenson valve gear

The Stephenson valve gear or Stephenson link or shifting link is a simple design of valve gear that was widely used throughout the world for all kinds of steam engine. It is named after Robert Stephenson but was actually invented by his employees....

. There were two variants:

• Q1/1 (69925-69928) with 1,500 gallon tanks
• Q1/2 (69929-69937) with 2,000 gallon tanks

The extra 500 gallons of water in the Q1/2 was carried in the rear tank, under the coal bunker, resulting in a smaller coal capacity.

Further reading

• Willie Yeadon
  Willie Yeadon
  Willie Brayshaw Yeadon was a British railway historian known for his magnum opus, Yeadon's Register of LNER Locomotives which covers every class of locomotive inherited and built by the London and North Eastern Railway, including those engines built to LNER designs by British Railways...
  
  Yeadon's Register of LNER locomotives Vol 20: Class Q1, Q2, Q3 & Q4, & The Q1 Tank