The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) Class J39 was a class of medium powered 0-6-0 steam locomotive designed for mixed-traffic work throughout the former LNER system between London and the north of Scotland.

History

The class was introduced by Nigel Gresley in July 1926, based on his previous Class J38 (introduced in January 1926) but with larger driving wheels. The larger wheels enabled them to be used on both passenger and freight trains, although at the expense of a lower

tractive effort As used in mechanical engineering, the term tractive force can either refer to the total traction a vehicle exerts on a surface, or the amount of the total traction that is parallel to the direction of motion. In railway engineering, the term t ...

. As a result they were given the BR

power classification A number of different numbering and classification schemes were used for the locomotives owned by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and its constituent companies; this page explains the principal systems that were used. The followi ...

4P/5F, rather than the 6F of the earlier class. A total of 289 examples were built over the next fifteen years, mostly built by the LNER's

Darlington Works Darlington Works was established in 1863 by the Stockton and Darlington Railway in the town of Darlington in the north east of England. The main part of the works, the North Road Shops was located on the northeast side of the Stockton and Darl ...

although 28 were built by Beyer, Peacock and Co. in 1935. The larger wheels necessitated the provision of low splashers over the front two wheels, which is the main means of differentiating between the two classes. However the increased speed afforded by the larger wheels caused the big end bearings to overheat, something that was aggravated by their use on passenger trains, and reliability suffered as a result. The locomotives were all fitted with superheaters and Ross 'Pop' safety valves. All passed into British Railways ownership in 1948 and they were numbered 64700-64988. They began to be withdrawn from service in 1959 and all examples had been scrapped by the end of 1962. No. 64747 served out the remainder of its days as a stationary boiler at the Woodford shed until October of 1964.

Sub-classes

Immingham Locomotive Depot with J39 geograph-2875921-by-Ben-Brooksbank

The class was divided into three sub-classes depending on the type of tender fitted. * J39/1 Standard LNER 3500 gallon tender. * J39/2 Standard LNER 4200 gallon tender. * J39/3 Various former North Eastern Railway tenders 3940-4125 gallons.

Accidents and incidents

*Circa 1930, locomotive No. 1448 was derailed by trap points at Lumpsey Colliery,

Brotton Brotton is a village in the civil parish of Skelton and Brotton and situated approximately south-east of Saltburn-by-the-Sea, 9 miles from Redcar, east of Middlesbrough and north-west of Whitby. In 2011, the village had a population of 5,39 ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...

. *On 28 August 1950, the connecting rod of a locomotive of this class became detached and consequently pierced the firebox, scalding the driver. *On 23 October 1950, locomotive No. 64880 was hauling a passenger train that was derailed at Drumburgh, Cumberland due to the condition of the track. Two people were killed and three were injured.

In model form

Bachmann manufactures the J39/2 version in 00 gauge model form.

Bassett-Lowke Bassett-Lowke was an English toy manufacturing company based in Northampton. Founded by Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke in 1898 or 1899, the company specialized in model railways, boats and ships, and construction sets. Bassett-Lowke started as a ...

manufactures the J39/2 version in

0 gauge O scale (or O gauge) is a scale commonly used for toy trains and rail transport modelling. Introduced by German toy manufacturer Märklin around 1900, by the 1930s three-rail alternating current O gauge was the most common model railroad sca ...

model form. Union Mills manufactures the J39 in British N-Scale.

Graham Farish {{Use dmy dates, date=April 2022 Graham Farish is a company that produces large quantities of British outline model railway equipment in N gauge. History The Poole, Dorset based manufacturer of radio parts and kits entered the model railway busin ...

-Bachmann manufactures the J39 in

N scale N scale is a popular model railway scale. Depending upon the manufacturer (or country), the scale ranges from 1:148 to 1:160. In all cases, the ''gauge'' (the distance between the rails) is . The term N ''gauge'' refers to the track dimensions, ...

History

Sub-classes

Accidents and incidents

In model form

References

Citations

References

External links