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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 4, Issue 12 (April 1, 1930)

Britain's Surprise Locomotive

Britain's Surprise Locomotive.

Locomotive development has now reached an exceptionally interesting stage, and it is not surprising that, in view of the ever-growing demand for increased power and speed, many novel types of experimental engines should now be finding their way into traffic. One of the most interesting steam locomotives to be built is the new high-pressure engine not long completed for service on the express passenger runs of the L. and N.E. system between London and Scotland.

This new L. and N. E. R. locomotive has a water - tube boiler with the unusually high pressure of 450lbs. per sq. in. It is a 4-cylinder compound engine of the “Baltic” 4-6-4 wheel arrangement, the six coupled driving wheels being 6ft. 8in. diameter. In outward appearance the engine is an entire departure from previous practice. The boiler has been constructed to the extreme limits of the gauge, and there is no room for a chimney to project above the boiler. The chimney, therefore, is sunk within casing plates. The whole of the air supplied to the firegrate is pre-heated, the supply being taken from the front of the smoke-box, passing down a space between the boiler and the casings. The two cast steel high pressure cylinders are of 12in. diameter and 26in. stroke, driving on to the leading coupled wheels. The two low pressure cylinders have a diameter of 20in. and a stroke of 26in., and drive the intermediate pair of coupled wheels. The engine, with its tender of the well-known “Flying Scotsman” corridor type, weighs nearly 170 tons, and is the longest and heaviest passenger locomotive in Great Britain.