Steam Trains and Engines

The Great Central Railway, like the North Eastern, was principally a freight carrier; apart from a few prestige services passenger trains were a secondary consideration. The Chief Mechanical Engineer from 1900 until the Grouping was J. G. Robinson, one of the greatest locomotive engineers of the day, and during that time he was responsible for almost the entire fleet of G.C.R. engines taken over by the L.N.E.R.

Typically, it is a freight locomotive for which Robinson is best remembered, and which is represented by over three hundred examples still at work today. Introduced in 1911, the 2-cylinder ' 04 ' 2-8-0 was a rugged, powerful machine of unusual simplicity ; ' a boiler and ten wheels ' as it was often described. Equally at home hauling incredibly long coal trains down the G.C. main line to London, or blasting over the mountainous Pennine route from Sheffield to Manchester, the ' O4s ' were chosen as the standard Railway Operating Division locomotives for service overseas during the First World War, and for years afterwards many were still at work in such unlikely places as Egypt and China.

At the end of the war, in 1918, both the Great Western and L.N.W.R. purchased a large number from the R.O.D., and the last of the G.W.R. examples has only recently been withdrawn. Over four hundred were in use on the L.N.E.R. and, apart from a few minor variations such as modified boilers and cabs, the majority remained as built.

In 1944 Gresley's successor Edward Thompson rebuilt some sixty ' O4s ' with Walschaerts valve gear, new cylinders and standard 220 Tb. boilers, but these new ' Ols ' have never been so highly regarded as the original Robinson engines.