Raven class A2
The North Eastern Railway class was a class of 4-6-2 ‘Pacifics’ designed by Sir Vincent Raven and introduced in 1922.
The North Eastern Railway’s (NER) development of express passenger locomotives was held up by World War 1 but resumed in 1921 with development of the very successful Raven ‘Atlantic’ class C7. Greater power and acceleration was required for the increasing loads on the East Coast Main Line, and hence Raven developed the class C7 into a ‘Pacific’.
Authorisation to build the first two locomotives was received at Darlington on 30th March 1922. Line drawings were published July 1922 to counter the publicity of the appearance of the GNR’s first Pacific. Both were recorded as delivered by December 1922 in time for Grouping (1923), although No. 2400 City of Newcastle was still in shop grey and No. 2401 City of Kingston upon Hull did not run until January 1923.
Results with the first two engines were satisfactory, and three more were ordered in February 1923. However, before construction had begun, Gresley modified the rear bogie to have class A1-style rear bogies.
From September 1929, No. 2404 City of Ripon was fitted with a modified class A1 boiler by Sir Nigel Gresley. Due to the small size of the class, it was not practical to build a new set of boilers, so a spare class A1 boiler was used instead. Both the new boiler and the locomotive had to be modified. The firebox was extended to fit the longer class A2, and the class A2 footplate had to be made wider.
In 1933, the use of class A3 boilers was considered, although none of the class A2s were eventually fitted with them. Also in 1933, standard Gresley 8-wheeled non-corridor tenders were ordered. These replaced the original NER 6-wheeled tenders in late 1934. The NER tenders were fitted to newly built class J39s.
A combination of their limited route availability, and the need for new boilers at about the time the first class V2s appeared, led to withdrawal between 1936 and 1937. Four of the original boilers were scrapped at the same time, but the fifth (from No. 2400) was converted into a stationary boiler in 1937 for use at Darlington. It was scrapped in May 1939.
No. 2402 City of York was the first locomotive built by the LNER to be scrapped in July 1936 with the last, No. 2403 City of Durham withdrawn in May 1937.
