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 ...

(LNER) Thompson Class O1 was a class of

2-8-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, usually in a leading truck, eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles, and no trailing wheels. ...

steam locomotive 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, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...

Construction

Because of wartime restrictions on new-build locomotives, they were rebuilds of

LNER Class O4 The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) Class O4 initially consisted of the 131 ex-Great Central Railway (GCR) GCR Class 8K, Class 8K 2-8-0 steam locomotives acquired on grouping in 1923. The engines were designed by John G. Robinson and buil ...

"ROD"

s built before and during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, although most of the locomotive was replaced during this rebuild. The first LNER rebuild took place in February 1944, at Gorton Works and a total of 58 locomotives were rebuilt to class O1 in total, with the last being locomotive 63856 in October 1949 during the early British Railways era, after which the programme was halted. The main modification to the original GCR Robinson Class 8K 2-8-0 design was the incorporation of a standard LNER 100A boiler,

Walschaerts valve gear The Walschaerts valve gear is a type of valve gear used to regulate the flow of steam to the pistons in steam locomotives, invented by Belgium, Belgian railway mechanical engineering, engineer Egide Walschaerts in 1844. The gear is sometimes name ...

and new cylinders. The locomotives kept the same numbers those being locomotives 3571, 3575, 3578-3579, 3589-3592, 3594, 3596, 3610, 3619, 3630, 3646, 3650, 3652, 3663, 3670, 3676, 3678, 3687, 3689, 3711-3712, 3725, 3740, 3746, 3752, 3755, 3760, 3768, 3773, 3777, 3780, 3784, 3786, 3789, 3792, 3795-3796, 3803, 3806, 3808, 3817, 3838, 3854, 3856, 3863, 3865, 3867-3869, 3872, 3874, 3879, 3886-3887, 3890 and 3901.

British Railways

The locomotives passed to

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 ...

(BR) Eastern and North Eastern Regions on 1 January 1948 and were given BR running numbers in the range 63570-63920. However, this range included many unrebuilt O4s.

Preservation

None of the Thompson O1s have been secured for preservation.

Models

In 2013,

Hornby Railways Hornby Hobbies Limited is a British-owned scale model manufacturing company which has been focused on rail transport modelling, model railways. Its roots date back to 1901 in Liverpool, when founder Frank Hornby received a patent for his Meccan ...

introduced an

OO gauge OO gauge or OO scale (also, 00 gauge and 00 scale) is the most popular standard gauge model railway standard in the United Kingdom, outside of which it is virtually unknown. OO gauge is one of several 4 mm-scale standards (4 mm to , or 1: ...

model of the O1 in BR black livery.

References

External links

The Thompson O1 2-8-0 Locomotives
''LNER encyclopedia''
Class O1 Details
at ''Rail UK'' {{LNER Locomotives O1 Thompson Railway locomotives introduced in 1944 Scrapped locomotives Standard-gauge steam locomotives of Great Britain 1′D h2 locomotives Freight locomotives 2-8-0 locomotives