Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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When Herbert Nigel Gresley took over the post of Locomotive Superintendent of the Great Northern Railway from Henry Ivatt, the GNR was experiencing rapid growth. Not even in service for 10 years, the Ivatt Atlantics 4-4-2s were already struggling on the heaviest express trains. So Gresley sought to introduce a 4-6-2 Pacific, essentially an enlarged Atlantic. But why did it not get built? And what was the North Eastern Railway doing with their Pacific?




SOURCES & CREDIT

GNR A1 No.1470 by Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21265

GNR C1 No.251 by Andy Dingley (scanner) - Scan from Howden, J.R. (1907) The Boys' Book of Locomotives, London: E. Grant Richards, pp. facing p. 29, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10528307

GNR A2 No.266 by 'The Engineer'

GNR C1 No.279 by British Railways

GNR H3 No.1636 by Internet Archive Book Images - flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14574231038/, CC0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=159996943

North Eastern Railway Class 4.6.2. No.2401 at King's Cross by Railway Correspondence and Travel Society - Locomotives of the LNER Part 2A, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36602245

North Eastern Railway Class Z No.717 by Unknown author - https://www.e-pics.ethz.ch/index/ETHBIB.Bildarchiv/ETHBIB.Bildarchiv_101012.html, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=127941570

Pennsylvania K class Pacific by unknown author - Unknown source, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38250911

Pennsylvania K4 class Pacific No.1737 by Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21265

Portrait of Herbert Nigel Gresley (not yet knighted!) by unknown author - The Railway News, Volume 96, August 26, 1911, page 502, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=151677506

Portrait of Henry Ivatt by unknown (not credited) - Original: G. F. Bird. (1910). The locomotives of the Great Northern Railway, facing title pageScan: Internet Archive – archive.org/details/locomotivesofgrea00bird, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16012579



Website sources

gnrsociety.com/locomotive-class/a4-and-a5

lner.info/locos/A/a2.php

steamindex.com/locotype/ivattloco.htm#a4



Literary sources:

'East Coast Pacifics at work' by P.N. Townend, published by Ian Allan

'Great Northern 4-4-2 'Atlantics'' by O.S. Nock, published by Patrick Stephens Limited

'LNER' by Geoffrey Hughes, published by Malaga Books

'LNER Locomotive Development' by Jim Armstrong, published by Peco




Video sources:

'The Decades Of Steam - 1920s' by Ian Allan



LINKS



Discord server - discord.gg/PtekEPJ


Twitter - twitter.com/TeaWithCaramel1


Outro music: Kevin MacLeod - Fiddles McGinty
(Fiddles McGinty by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Source: incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1400051

Artist: incompetech.com )



Channel icon by Dean Walker - https://bsky.app/profile/ohlookitstrainart.bsky.social



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