London & North Eastern Railway 'A4' class 4-6-2

Designed by LNER Chief Mechanical Engineer Nigel Gresley
Built by LNER at the Doncaster Workshops 1935-1938.

CYLINDERS (3) 18½ x 26 ins (470mmx660mm)
COUPLED WHEEL DIAMETER 80 ins (2,032mm)
TOTAL HEATING SURFACE 3,325 square feet (308.9m2)
(including superheater)
GRATE AREA 41 square feet (3.8m2)
BOILER PRESSURE 250 PSI (1,723.8 kpa)
TRACTIVE EFFORT 35,455 lbs (16,082.4kg)
TOTAL WEIGHT 170 tons (172.7 tonnes)
LENGTH OVERALL 71 feet (21,640.8mm)

Four of these legendary locomotives were originally built in 1935 to haul the LNER's new streamlined train, 'The Silver Jubilee'. They were developed from Gresley's original A1 'Pacifics' and certainly proved an immediate success powering the 'Jubilee' over the 268 miles from Kings Cross to Newcastle in 4 hours at an average speed of 67 mph.

A further 31 A4's were built and together with the original four spent almost all of their working lives hauling mainline express passenger trains until being displaced by diesels in the early 1960's.

One of the class, No. 4468 'Mallard' achieved the world record for steam traction, 126 mph in 1938. This locomotive now resides in the York Museum.