LNER Class A4 4469 Sir Ralph Wedgwood

LNER Class A4 No.4469 Sir Ralph Wedgwood was an A4 Class locomotive of the LNER. Originally named Gadwall, it was later renamed Sir Ralph Wedgwood, after the chief officer of LNER for 16 years.

The locomotive, along with B16 class No. 925, were damaged beyond repair during a Baedeker Blitz air raid on York on the night of 28/29 April 1942. The remains of the locomotive were scrapped at Doncaster. 4469's chime whistle was fitted to LNER Class Y8 engine #560. The tender was stored until 1945, then repaired and attached to LNER Thompson Class A2/1 No. 3696. Its name was then given to another A4, no. 4466, which had previously been named Herring Gull.

A plaque was placed on the spot, now within the Great Hall of the National Railway Museum, by the Gresley Society on 29 April 1992, the 50th anniversary of the raid.

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