GNR Stirling 4-2-2 - Development

Development

On his arrival at GNR, Stirling set out to standardise the railway's rolling stock. He also borrowed a 'single-wheeler' from the Great Eastern Railway and, in 1868, designed two versions of 2-2-2 with 7 ft.1in driving wheels.

The outcome, in 1870 was a locomotive with 8 ft. 1in. driver wheels, designed specifically for high speed expresses between York and London. The norm in those days was inside cylinders. Not only were there frequent failures of the cranked axle shafts, with such large drivers, they would have set the boiler too high. He therefore used outside cylinders with a four wheeled bogie for lateral stability at the front end. According to Hamilton Ellis's, description, entitled 'Pat Stirling's masterpiece,' the design was a version of a 2-2-2 designed by Stirling for the Glasgow and South Western Railway, 'considerably enlarged, and provided with a leading bogie.'

A total of 53 were built at Doncaster between 1870 and 1895, in three series introduced in 1870, 1884, and 1894;. (George Frederick Bird, referred to the three series as 'G, G2 and G3 classes' in 1910, and this classification has been used in other sources but it does not appear to have been used officially by the GNR.)

The GNR did not number its locomotives sequentially, instead using numbers freed up by withdrawing older locomotives. Thus the 1870 series was numbered between GNR No. 1 and 671, the 1884 series 771-8 and 1001-2, and 1894 series 1003-8.