The GER Class E72 was a class of ten

0-6-0 is the Whyte notation designation for steam locomotives with a wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles, and no trailing wheels. Historically, this was the most common wheel arrangement used o ...

steam locomotives A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

Great Eastern Railway The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern R ...

. They all passed to the

London and North Eastern Railway The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after London, Midland and Scottish Railway, LMS) of the "Big Four (British railway companies), Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It ope ...

at the

1923 grouping The Railways Act 1921 ( 11 & 12 Geo. 5. c. 55), also known as the Grouping Act, was an act of Parliament enacted by the British government, and was intended to stem the losses being made by many of the country's 120 railway companies, by "grou ...

and received the classification J18.

History

These locomotives had inside cylinders driving wheels. They had a distinctive front overhang, not possessed by any other GER 0-6-0 class. This was needed to clear the cylinder tail rods. Locomotive 1240 was fitted for a time with a Weir

feedwater heater A feedwater heater is a power plant component used to pre-heat water delivered to a steam generating boiler. Preheating the feedwater reduces the irreversibilities involved in steam generation and therefore improves the thermodynamic efficiency o ...

and pump, with the heater component mounted on the boiler between the dome and chimney. All were still in service at the 1923 grouping; the LNER adding 7000 to the numbers of nearly all the ex-Great Eastern locomotives, including the Class E72 locomotives. Between 1935 and 1936, the LNER rebuilt them in line with its standards, and reclassified them as class J19/2, the same as the rebuilt

GER Class T77 The GER Class T77 was a class of twenty-five 0-6-0 steam locomotives designed by A. J. Hill for the Great Eastern Railway. They all passed to the London and North Eastern Railway at the 1923 grouping and received the classification J19. Histor ...

(which had been LNER class J19, later J19/1, before rebuilding). At nationalisation in 1948,

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commis ...

added 60000 to their LNER numbers. They all continued in service until 1958, when the first was withdrawn; all were gone by the end of 1961.

References

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External links

— Great Eastern Railway Society
The Hill J18 & J19 (GER Classes E72 & T77) 0-6-0 Locomotives
— LNER Encyclopedia {{DEFAULTSORT:Ger Class E72 Great Eastern Railway locomotives, E72 0-6-0 locomotives C h2 locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1912 Scrapped locomotives Standard-gauge steam locomotives of Great Britain Freight locomotives