Vincent Raven - Steam Locomotives

Steam Locomotives

In 1910 he became Chief Mechanical Engineer on Wilson Worsdell's retirement (The title of the post had changed from Locomotive Superintendent in 1902). Raven developed some of Worsdell's designs for steam locomotives, like the T2 0-8-0 freight locomotive, as well as introducing designs of his own. In particular he favoured a 3 cylinder design with the locomotives driving on the leading coupled axle. This was applied to a series of locomotives, class S3, a mixed traffic 4-6-0, class Y, a 4-6-2T tank engine for freight work, class D, a 4-4-4T tank engine for passenger work, class Z, a 4-4-2 'Atlantic' for express passenger work, and the LNER Class A2 4-6-2, a 'Pacific' for express passenger work. The most memorable of these was the class Z Atlantics which had a reputation for speed and good riding on East Coast Main Line expresses north of York.

The 3 cylinder principle was also applied to class X, a heavy freight 4-8-0T tank engine, but this had a divided drive with the inside cylinder driving the second axle and the outside cylinders driving the third axle. The class T3 was also three cylinder with all cylinders driving the second axle of this heavy freight 0-8-0.