Reference articles on history, science, culture and more
Encyclopedia

NER Class S2

Class of British steam locomotives

The North Eastern Railway Class S2, later the London and North Eastern Railway Class B15, was a mixed-traffic 4-6-0 steam locomotive designed by Vincent Raven for North Eastern Railway and later transferred to the London North Eastern Railway. The design was based on NER Class S.

01Superheaters

The first seven were built with saturated (non-superheated) boilers, however the remaining thirteen were fitted with Robinson 24-element superheaters. The saturated B15s were eventually fitted with superheaters. Some of these rebuilds used Schmidt superheaters, however they were eventually converted to use Robinson superheaters, as Robinson superheaters were the LNER's standard type of superheaters.

02Stumpf Uniflow variant

The last of the class, No.825 was fitted with Stumpf Uniflow cylinders. The inlet and exhaust ports were separate. Although the exhaust port was always the same size, the inlet port could vary in size according to the position of the cutoff. In 1918, the system was used on C7 No.2212, with a tidier result. Due to the special attention required for these experimental locomotives, in March 1924, the locomotive was rebuilt as a standard B15, matching the other members.

03Performance

Although they were used on their suitable work, they steamed poorly if handled with crews who were not used to the B15s (which also affected the B13s), and thus they were unpopular with crews who did not have enough experience on the B15s.

04Accidents and incidents

  • On 14 February 1920, locomotive No. 787 was hauling a freight train which was involved in a head-on collision with a freight train hauled by locomotive No. 788 at Skelton, Yorkshire.

05Withdrawal

Withdrawal commenced with No.788 in September 1937, and all were gone by December 1947, with the last being No.1696 (NER No.820). None were preserved.

Watch videos about NER Class S2Explainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article NER Class S2, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.