Those Great Locomotives - LNER P2

What perhaps are the most talked about Gresley locomotives that were not Pacifics... For most of their lives. The London & North Eastern Railway class P2, built entirely for work in Scotland, had a rocky life, from the very first member running hot during tests to the very last days working express freights under British Railways ownership. But has their reputation preceded them...

A huge thank you to Ian MacCabe of the Gresley Society and Sophie Bunker-James from the A1 Trust. Mister MacCabe gave me permission to use the Society’s wonderful archive photographs of the original P2, and even sent in his own colourisation of some photos. Without Ms Bunker-James I would not have known where to start digging, and she very kindly showed interest in the video itself.

SOURCES AND CREDIT:

The black and white photographs of the LNER P2: courtesy of The Gresley Society

Image of Edward Thompson - Courtesy of LNER Encyclopedia

Image of Nigel Gresley - Courtesy of LNER Encyclopedia

Unless stated otherwise in either the video or the description, footage and photographs are my own work.

External offline sources used:
'The Great Book Of Trains' by Brian Hollingsworth & Arthur Cook, published by Salamander Books Ltd;
'British Locomotive Classes' by Michael Harris, published by Ian Allan Ltd;
'Steam Finale Scotland' by Brian J. Dickson, published by Ian Allan Publishing;
'The Observer's Book of Railway Locomotives of Britain' by H. C. Casserley, published by Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd;
''Winston Churchill' And The Bulleid Pacifics' by Rob Adamson and Chris Nettleton, published by Friends of the National Railway Museum.

LINKS

Outro music: Kevin MacLeod - Fiddles McGinty

#LNER

[FlyingScott]

I'm never doing an episode that's 21 minutes ever again, the raw recording was 1, 5 hours of me mouth breathing.
Anyway, here are more links to the Gresley Society and the A1 Trust!

[DDJP]

Been looking forward to this one, nice work Scott!

[finlayfraser]

Very interesting. Thomson is almost always painted a a villain, destroying Gresley's magnificent machines out of personal animus. I can certainly remember the nameplates of Cock of the North, and Mons Meg on the locomotives of trains I travelled on in the late 50's and early 60's. The Princess Royals are often touted as the most powerful locos, but Wikipedia figures disprove that in favour of the P2s, being only slightly behind the LMS Garrets, 40K, 43k and 45k ft/lbs respectively.

[the_autism_express]

To be honest, after hearing about the issues with the P2 class, I think Thompson rebuilding them into the A2/2s was a good decision

I'll probably be "cAnCeLlEd" for that, but I fail to see why I should care

[BLUERENI]

still one of my all time favorite steam locos of all time

[roberthuron]

In the US, the Mikados/MacArthurs[UP], were used in both Passenger and Freight service, and there were two versions that the USRA( United States Railroad Authority, a WW1operation) designed, and they were multiplied many times over! Now the major difference for the P2's was the use of cast steel frames, and the use of slab frames, ala, the DR/DB(German railways), if Gresley had used that type of framing, and most importantly RADIAL AXLEBOXES, the problems would have definitely alleviated, and working on the road, would have been more consistent! Note please, that the PRR, SP, and UP, plus other railways routinely ran their Mikados on steeper gradients, and tighter curves, than the GNR had! So, if Gresley had taken the hints from US roads, as he had designed the A1, A2's after the PRR K4, and really could have followed through on the equivalent 2-8-2's, i.e.L1's, the problems encountered would never have existed! Anyway, an alternative history, or might have been! Thank you for your attention ☺️! ☺️

[stephendavies]

Can't wait to see PoW up & running. An excellent video

[nielsleenknegt]

Actually, Sir Scot, The Peppercorn A1 was not an itaration of an A3. The lineage (As heard on the podcast RWM with Simon A.C. Martin) goes more like this: P2-> get rebuild into thompson A2/X as well as new build A2/3, that was inproved by Peppercorn with his A2 and that design was improved by his A1 class (tornado)

[Backwardlooking]

Compliments for your technical knowledge and explanation. As a boy in the 1950’s I was fascinated by pictures of all of these obscure locomotives which had very little explanatory information. 👍🏻🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[mikesanders]

A brilliant video Flying Scott, well done 👏🏻

On the one hand it’s such a shame Gresley and Thompson never got the chance to rectify the issues with the original P2’s (thicker crank, the V2 pony etc) but then we have a new one which will in the next couple of years be making a mockery of the U.K.’s fearsome inclines 🙂

[IndustrialParrot]

still smaller than the other P2 from the great northern railroad of the US witch was a 4-8-2 that dragged trains like the empire builder over the montana rockies and over other steep grades all over the system

[robertcharlessceats]

An excellent and highly informative video. Although I'm English, I thoroughly enjoyed the Scottish accented narrative. A nice touch and thank you kindly

[justandy]

I just had to pause it at 10.30 . That picture of 2006 'Wolf of Badenoch' just looks beautiful. All that raw power and pressure contained within, an incredible example of what the Engineers and metal workers of Great Britain could achieve, yet they still managed to make them look absolutely gorgeous.
If I was in charge of the P2 locomotive trust, I'd be making one of these.

[martinhall]

Well done, a very interesting and informative video indeed. This was an amazing video, in history and technology. I look forward to many more. Thank you.

[robertbalazslorincz]

3:41 apparently there was an incident (not sure if on the LNER) where two trains passing each other taking on water via troughs somehow caused water to break the cab window, injuring the fireman.

[Lamp_]

Yeeessss

I love the p2s. Got a hornby one for £80 last year

But we’ll be getting a real one soon...😉

[robertwilloughby]

Re Gresley being unwell. It's true that Gresley was suffering with stress and had what he thought to be minor heart problems, but his death came as a complete surprise.

[chrisdavies]

Can't wait to see the new build Prince of Wales, I believe there are some size differences compared to the originals.

[Mekaniskidiot]

i was here in Edinbrugh last week and i really enjoyed it

[emilioi.valdez]

Say Scott, think you can do a video on the mad quadraplex locomotive that used a variation of Franco-Crosti boiler that Belgium created?