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However, the railways on which the earliest British locomotives worked were designed to carry coal and other heavy freight steadily rather than passengers at high speed.  As a result, designers such as Richard Trevithick (Pen-Y-Darren 1804) John Blenkinsop and Matthew Murray (Middleton Railway 1812) and William Hedley (Wylam on Tyne 1814) maximised torque applied to the rails via systems of reducing gears and relatively small flanged locomotive wheels.

George Stephenson's four wheeled Killingworth Colliery locomotives of 1814 onwards had vertical cylinders acting on each axle, as did "Locomotion No 1" of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825 ( pictured above) although in the latter case the two independently powered pairs of wheels were linked by coupling rods rather than a chain drive. 

Despite being designed for a railway intended to move freight however, on the opening day of the Stockton and Darlington on 25 September 1825 "Locomotion" hauled twelve wagon loads of coal and twenty one wagons of passengers at speeds of up to 12 mph, prompting George Stephenson to remark:

"You will live to see the day when railways will supersede almost all other methods of conveyance, when it will be cheaper for a working man to travel on a railway than walk on foot.  I know there are great and almost unsurmountable difficulties to be encountered; but what I have said will come to pass as sure as you live."

Indeed, the success of the Stockton and Darlington Railway inspired the construction of the World's first inter-city line between Liverpool and Manchester.  Before this opened in 1830 however, the directors - still uncertain of whether to use locomotive or stationary engine haulage - announced competitive trials to be held at Rainhill, near Liverpool, in 1829.

Apart from John Brandreth's "Cyclopede" - powered by a horse on a treadmill - the steam locomotives "Rocket" - promoted by George and Robert Stephenson - William Braithwaite and John Ericsson's "Novelty", Timothy Hackworth's "Sans Pareil", and Timothy Burstall's late arriving "Perserverance" competing for the £ 500 prize all had to comply with Condition II which stated:

The engine, if it weighs Six Tons, must be capable of drawing after it, day by day, on a well constructed Railway, on a level plane, a Train of Carriages of the gross weight of Twenty Tons, including the Tender and Water Tank, at a rate of Ten Miles per Hour, with a pressure of steam in the boiler not exceeding Fifty Pounds on the square inch.

Like "Sans Pareil", "Rocket" applied the power of its pistons direct to cranks attached to one pair of its four wheels. However, while Timothy Hackworth's machine had all four wheels made the same size and coupled by eccentric rods the pistons on "Rocket" applied to just one axle whose wheels were considerably larger than the other free-turning pair.  Famously too, "Rocket" featured the new multi-tubular boiler - visible in the picture above with the firebox removed - which could produce more steam more efficiently than either the single flue Lancashire boiler on "Sans Pareil" or the small vertical boiler fitted to "Novelty".

However, although the large powered wheels allowed a greater length of line to be covered for each stroke of the piston, the tractive force available for "Rocket" to pull a load was proportionately reduced: rather like a driver trying to start an automobile in high gear. In addition, as only one of two axles was powered, only a little more than half the engine weight was carried on the driving wheels. This relatively low 'adhesion weight' would ultimately limit the performance of "Rocket" in terms of the maximum load that could be started from rest or hauled steadily up an incline.

In contrast, "Sans Pareil" for all its less efficient steam raising ability, applied all its weight to its powered wheels - where its piston connecting rod met the wheels further out from their centres, thus applying more torque at the expense of maximum speed.

In this way, freight and passenger steam locomotive design was to diverge with the former maximising torque and adhesion weight and the latter maximising speed.

In fact the thrust of the original pistons, which were set an angle of about 38 degrees to the rails, tended to lift the wheels of "Rocket" clear of the rails at high speed. Consequently, on the engines delivered the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1830, the cylinders were set all but horizontally. "Rocket" was rebuilt to similar standards, acquiring new cylinders inclined at just eight degrees to the horizontal.

Among the Liverpool and Manchester's new locomotives with 2-2-0 rather than 0-2-2 wheel arrangements were members of the Planet Class (seen above) built, like "Rocket", by Robert Stephenson and Company.  These locomotives again featured two cylinders - measuring 11" x 16" rather than 8" x 16 1/2" - but placed between the wheels under the smokebox to retain more heat.  In turn this meant that the 5' diameter driving wheels - 3 1/2" wider than "Rocket" - were on a cranked rather than plain axle and to add overall strength the Planet design had a frame outside its wheels.  An adhesion weight of 5 tons was achieved and the multi tubular boiler and blast pipe of "Rocket " was retained. 

The first Planet Class locomotive ran experimentally on 23 November 1830 and then hauled an eighty-ton load from Liverpool to Manchester on 4 December in a time of 2 hours and 54 minutes.  The Planet Class was later the basis for both a Liverpool and Manchester 0-4-0 named "Sampson" and the 2-4-0 "Patentee" Class of 1834.

The first of these engines was made for the British-owned Liége & Namur Railway in Belgium by Tulk & Ley of Whitehaven, Cumbria. Completed in 1846, this 4-2-0 had 7' diameter driving wheels and cylinders measuring 16"x 20". Crampton type engines were then tested on the London & North Western Railway, culminating in the unique 6-2-0 "Liverpool" built in 1848 by Bury, Curtis & Kennedy. This 35-ton monster - with 8' drivers and two 18" x 24" cylinders - allegedly attained 75mph with a light train but the rigidity of its wheelbase damaged the light and poorly laid track.  Although the Crampton system was soon abandoned in Britain however it survived longer in France, as witnessed by the locomotive pictured above.

The first bogie had been patented in 1812 by William Chapman while Isaac Dripps of the Camden & Amboy Railroad was the first to fit a pilot (or 'cowcatcher') and a pony truck when, in 1832, he converted a Stephenson made 0-4-0 to 2-2-2. 

However, although the first 4-2-2 design with a swivelling front bogie came to Britain from the USA in 1840, it was not as an express train engine but as a banker on the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway's Lickey Incline. 

Surveyed by the noted civil engineer Captain William Moorsom, the line from Bromsgrove up the Lickey Hills to Barnt Green was a cheaper alternative to a more easterly route from the Severn Vale to the Midland Plateau suggested by Isambard Kingdom Brunel.  Avoiding the expensive land of populated areas, the two mile long 1 in 37.7 incline became the steepest sustained adhesion worked gradient in Great Britain and since no English manufacturer would or could supply the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway with suitable locomotives to work it the company turned to Norris of Philadelphia.

Perhaps the American firm's best qualification for building steam engines fit for the Lickey Incline was that on 10 July 1836 their 4-2-0 locomotive "George Washington" had climbed the 2085' long Belmont Inclined Plane of the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad which included a 187' section of 1 in 15 gradient, while hauling a 19 200 lb load.  However, as many august engineering periodicals doubted the Norris Brother's veracity a larger load was hauled up the same incline by "George Washington" on 19 July 1836.

The Birmingham and Gloucester Railway acquired 26 Norris 4-2-0s ( pictured above) of which the last nine were built in England, three by Benjamin Hick and Sons and six by Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company The last of these locomotives was withdrawn in 1856 and class members were also tried on the Grand Junction Railway and the steeply graded Bolton & Leigh Railway.

Before leaving the Birmingham & Gloucester Norris 4-2-0s, it should also be noted that the likeness of one of these locomotives was inscribed on the tombstones of Thomas Scaife and John Rutherford who were in fact killed at Bromsgrove station in 1840 when a completely different single driver locomotive exploded. 

The two men, now buried in Bromsgrove churchyard, had been in charge of "Surprise", the first tank engine to have a multi tubular boiler.  Built by William Church - better remembered for his typesetting machine - the 0-2-2 well tank had horizontal outside cylinders, piston valves and an eccentric motion and had originally been called "Victoria" when tested on the London and Birmingham and Grand Junction Railways from 1838.  After the fatal accident, a new boiler was fitted and the locomotive renamed "Eclipse" although by the late 1850s it had been rebuilt as a six coupled engine on the Swansea Vale Railway.

"Hurricane" was built by R. & W. Hawthorn of Newcastle upon Tyne using the 1836 patents of Thomas Harrison and featured cylinders and running gear on one frame and the boiler on a six wheeled trailer, relying on ball-joint connectors to convey steam from one vehicle to another.  The "locomotive" was thus a 2-2-2 with record setting 10' diameter driving wheels but although the design of "Hurricane" succeeded in minimising axle load its lack of adhesive weight doomed it to failure.  Similarly unsuccessful was "Thunderer", a locomotive of the same pattern but with four 6' diameter geared driving wheels.

Like the Liverpool and Manchester Planet Class, the Stars featured inside cylinders and cranked driving axles, which were supported on six bearings by a massive outside frame.

Originally intended for the 5'6" gauge New Orleans Railway, "North Star" was altered to the Great Western's Broad Gauge and its driving wheels increased in diameter to 7'. It was then delivered from the Tyne to the Thames by barge, arriving at Maidenhead on 28 November 1837 just under six months before the GWR baulk road arrived there from London.

On 31 May 1838 however "North Star" worked the first ever Great Western passenger train for the company's directors and was rebuilt in 1854 with 16" x 16" cylinders and a wheelbase a foot longer.  When withdrawn in 1870 it had run 429 000 miles but after being declined as an exhibit by the Science Museum in 1903 "North Star" was broken up at Swindon Works in 1906.

Some parts of the locomotive were saved however and incorporated in a non-working replica built at Swindon for the Darlington Railway Centenary celebrations of 1925.  This replica "North Star" is now preserved in Steam at Swindon and is pictured below.

Developing the format of North Star and its sisters with a larger boiler, the 2-2-2s with 7' diameter driving wheels were able to set new standards of Broad Gauge speed with "Fire Fly" itself said to have covered the 30 3/4 miles from Twyford to Paddington in 37 minutes at an average sped of 50mph - unprecedented in 1840.  Similarly in 1845 Fire Fly Class member "Ixion" impressed the Parliamentary Gauge Commissioners with a 63 minute journey between Paddington and Didcot, averaging 50mph and reaching 60mph at times.  However, due to the "coal cart" gauge of the Stephensons being ten times more prevalent in Britain by this time, the Broad Gauge was already doomed.

The Fire Fly class handled the principal trains from London to Bristol when they were new and were capable of hauling trains weighing 80 tons at speeds up to 60 miles per hour. One of the class also hauled the first royal train, taking Queen Victoria from Slough to London, in 1842.

The first of these was a prototype 2-2-2 with 8' diameter driving wheels and an 18' 11 1/2" wheelbase originally known as "Premier" and later renamed "Great Western" after both the railway and Brunel's Transatlantic steamship of 1838.  After breaking its leading axle however, "Great Western" was rebuilt as the first of the 4-2-2 "Iron Duke" Class, the newly built examples of which entered GWR service between April 1847 and July 1855.  "Iron Duke" itself - named after the Duke of Wellington - was the second brand new member of the class and was in service from 1847 to 1871.

The Iron  Dukes - known as the Alma Class from 1865 - had an estimated top speed of 80 mph and were used to haul the Flying Dutchman - for many years the fastest express in the World.  In 1852 the Flying Dutchman ran the 194 miles from Paddington to Exeter at an average speed of 53 mph with sections of 59 mph running on Brunel's Billiard Table between London and Swindon.

In 1870, the first of the new build Iron Dukes "Great Britain" - along with "Prometheus" and "Estaffete" - were rebuilt with new frames and boilers as the first members of the Rover Class

Perhaps the most famous of the Iron Dukes was built in 1851 and initially named "Charles Russell" in honour of a GWR director but before being put on show at the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park was renamed "Lord of the Isles": an hereditary title of Scottish nobility given to the eldest son of the British monarch.  After 33 years of service, "Lord of the Isles" was withdrawn in 1884 but was exhibited again at Edinburgh in 1890, Chicago in 1893 and Earls Court, London in 1897.

Given this fame, it is incredible to think today that "Lord of the Isles" was only scrapped at Swindon in 1906 - along with "North Star" mentioned above - due to lack of space in the Works. 

The replica "Iron Duke" is normally based at the National Railway Museum at York (as seen above)  but has also visited the Great Western Society at Didcot which also has a length of Broad Gauge track.  In 2006 it took part in the Nine Lives of Isambard Kingdom Brunel exhibition at Bristol and visited the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway at Toddington (as seen below) in 2010 for the GWR 175 celebrations.

Since 1985 working replicas have also been built of a Liverpool and Manchester Planet Class 2-2-2 for the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry and of the Broad Gauge "Fire Fly" at the Great Western Society at Didcot.   On 5 February 2010 meanwhile the Gloucester Citizen reported:

"A faithful and working replica of the world's most famous early steam locomotive has been successfully tested on a West railway.  Bill Parker and his staff from the Flour Mill Workshop in Bream, got together to produce a new version of Stephenson's Rocket, which won the 1829 Rainhill Trials in Liverpool and became the world's first commercial steam engine.  The replica took a year to build and was yesterday tested on the Avon Valley Railway at Bitton near Bristol.  Creating the Rocket from scratch was easier said than done - the specifications for the engine have been lost over time, and the engineers had to use history books which had pictures of the famous yellow engine.  "Obtaining the materials was the biggest thing", explained engineer Geoff Phelps.  "Materials from 1829 don't really exist now.  We had to make and manufacture tooling to create the materials that we've used and the shapes that we've pressed copper into."  At the end of the week the 2010 version of The Rocket will be travelling to a new life at the National Railway Museum in York.

The first eight members of  what were originally known as the 3001 Class (numbers 3021 to 3028, built from April to August 1891) were in fact built as convertible broad gauge 2-2-2 locomotives, being converted to standard gauge in mid-1892. A further 22 were built in late 1891 and early 1892, this time as standard gauge engines.

However, despite being considered by many aesthetes to be the most handsome locomotive ever built, the 3031 Class were replaced by the City Class 4-4-0s from 1903 as the introduction of corridor carriages and dining cars made trains finally too heavy for single driver locomotives.  The last 3031 Class 4-2-2s were scrapped in 1915 and none were preserved.

Despite this, the 3031 Class has lived long in the minds of railway enthusiasts mainly because 3046 "Lord of the Isles" ( named after the by-then-withdrawn "Iron Duke" 4-2-2 mentioned above ) was the subject of a Triang 00 gauge model later re-released by Hornby as classmate 3047 "Lorna Doone".  3046 "Lord of the Isles" was also the subject of Matchbox and Brio Railways models while 3041 "The Queen" came back in 1982 as a 12" to the foot model commissioned by Tussauds for the Railways and Royalty exhibition at Windsor and Eton station.

The engine remains there, but the tender was scrapped to make more space for the shopping centre occupying that station building from the late 1990s. Parts of the tender were saved for use in the new build London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Atlantic project at the Bluebell Railway as the tender was originally from the LBSCR.

The Jenny Lind design in fact originated at Brighton Locomotive Works with a prototype 2-2-2 designed by John Gray, Locomotive Superintendent from 1845 until 1847 when he was dismissed and replaced by Thomas Kirtley, who did not favour Gray's complicated "horse leg" valve gear.

Despite this view, Gray's engine had 15"x 20" inside cylinders, 6' diameter driving wheels and a so-called 'mixed' frame featuring an inside frame for the cylinders and driving wheels with inside bearings, and an outside frame for the 4' diameter leading and trailing wheels, using outside bearings. The inside frame stopped at the firebox, which was as wide as the wheels would allow and so minimised the overhang at each end.

By this time however David Joy, Chief Draughtsman of E.B. Wilson, had been asked to visit Brighton and trace Gray's drawings of his 2-2-2 so that ten more examples could be built in Leeds. Joy, who had spent his formative years sketching and studying all the locomotives he had encountered, then collaborated with E.B. Wilson Works Manager James Fenton to modify Gray's design.

As ever in engineering, compromises had to be made to create a practical yet effective vehicle, and in the case of contemporary passenger steam locomotives the desire for a low centre of gravity to make the engine stable conflicted with the need for a boiler wide enough to produce enough steam to feed the pistons reciprocating at high speed.  Although some locomotives had been built with long boilers on a 4-2-0 wheel arrangement, too long a boiler would also create instability due to "hunting". In the 1840s, too, the wrought iron used for coupling rods tended to break at high speeds, thus making coupled driving wheels a less attractive option than single drivers.

As such, Joy and Fenton settled on a medium sized boiler with 800 sq ft of heated surface area and a pressure of 120 psi and concentrated on improving its steaming abilities - an area in which James Fenton had particular expertise. Although extra strengthening meant that the finished "Jenny Lind" was three tons heavier than expected, the new locomotive steamed freely and was economical on fuel and thanks to Joy's suspension arrangements was also extremely smooth running and stable.

Indeed, so successful was the Jenny Lind type that it was widely copied into the 1860s with E.B.Wilson producing customised editions and a more powerful "large Jenny".  24 of the standard Jenny Linds went from Leeds to the Midland Railway and Thomas Kirtley's successor at Brighton, John Chester Craven, built a class of very similar locomotives in 1853-1854.  In 1860, "large Jennys" were also built by Beyer Peacock and Company of Gorton, Manchester for the Portuguese South Western Railway.

Making Derby the Midland Railway's centre for locomotive building and repair, Matthew Kirtley also supervised the work of Charles Markham  in perfecting a new firebox for efficiently burning bituminous coal - rather than more expensive coke - with less waste and smoke.   The Markham firebox - introduced in 1859 - included an inclined brick arch below the boiler's tube plate and a deflector plate on the fire-door. 

By this time Kirtley's outside framed 2-2-2s were handling most of the Midland Railway's express trains although after St Pancras Station opened in 1868 the London traffic became so heavy that 2-2-2 often needed to double head trains, leading to the introduction of Kirtley's 800 Class 2-4-0s in 1870.

In contrast to the functional appearance of many early locomotives, "Columbine" also set new aesthetic standards with its combination of graceful curves linking the cylinders and smokebox and the distinctive framing supports of the piston slide bars.

By 1902 "Columbine" was the motive power for the LNWR's Engineering Department inspection saloon and was subsequently preserved.

Despite not being a title that would inspire confidence today the name applied to 184, the first of the class, was perpetuated from a withdrawn Francis Trevithick 2-4-0 goods engine and ranked with other LNWR engines named "Theorem" and "Experiment".  However, following the display of class member 531 in lined green - rather than blackberry black - livery at the London International Exhibition of 1862 the curvy single drivers became known as the "Lady of The Lake" Class. 

The Bronze Medal winning locomotives had typical Ramsbottom chimney tops, safety valves, screw reversers, horizontal smokebox door but lacked locomotive brakes, cab or top lamp bracket.  The Lady of the Lakes were, however, the first locomotives fitted with tender water scoops to allow them to replenish and so extend their range from troughs laid between the rails.

60 examples were built up to 1865 and many survived into the Edwardian era after being rebuilt by Francis William Webb, LNWR Locomotive Superintendent from 1871 to 1903.

Webb also deserves a special mention in the history of British single driver for his three cylinder compound "Experiment" Class of 1883-84 which, despite looking at first glance like a 2-4-0 was in fact a 2-2-2-0. The two pairs of 6' 71/2" driving wheels were powered by different high ( twin 13"x24" ) and low ( single 26" x 24") pressure cylinders .  Not only that but as the pistons were not synchronised and so, it is claimed, the wheels sometimes turned in opposite directions while the locomotive remained stationary!  Although 30 examples of what could be considered a throwback to George Stephenson's "Locomotion" were built they were quickly withdrawn by Webb's successor George Whale after 1903, mainly because the mechanical complexity of having two supposedly free-running pairs of driving wheels outweighed any cost savings from re-using steam that would have otherwise disappeared up the blast pipe.

North of Carlisle before 1923, London & North Western locomotives would have been taken off Anglo-Scottish expresses and replaced by motive power from the Caledonian Railway,  including the unique 123, built by Neilson & Company in Glasgow as their works number 3553 of 1886 for that year's Edinburgh Exhibition. 

The only late 19th Century single driver to appear on a Scottish railway, 123 embodied cab and boiler mountings as well other characteristics associated with Dugald Drummond, Caledonian Railway Locomotive Superintendent from 1882 to 1890 having previously held the equivalent post on the North British Railway from 1875.

The 4-2-2 with 7' driving wheels also took part in the 1888 races between East and West Coast companies, running with four carriages between Carlisle and Edinburgh and covering the 100 3/4 miles in 107 3/4 minutes, including the nine mile ascent of Beattock bank with gradients ranging from 1 in 202 to 1 in 74.

For a number of years after the First World War 123 was only used for hauling director's saloon trains, but in the early 1930s it reverted to local traffic between Perth and Dundee, by which time it had received a new boiler with Ramsbottom safety valves mounted over the firebox rather than in the dome and was numbered 14010 by the LMS after acquiring it as 1123. 

Having taken an overview of British single driver express locomotives it is now easier to put the works of Patrick Stirling and Henry Alfred Ivatt on the Great Northern Railway into context.

Patrick Stirling became Locomotive Superintendent of the Great Northern Railway at the age of 46 in 1866 taking over from Archibald Sturrock, who had been in the post since 1850 having previously worked under Gooch at Swindon.  Sturrock had also established Doncaster Locomotive Works in 1853, designed a unique 4-2-2 - number 215, with an oak framed leading bogie - in 1853 and introduced booster tenders to allow his 0-6-0 freight engines to haul heavy loads up 1 in 200 gradients.

Son of the Reverend Robert Stirling, inventor of the Stirling hot air engine, Patrick Stirling was also the brother of James, who replaced him as Locomotive Superintendent of the Glasgow and South Western Railway and went on to fill the equivalent post at the South Eastern Railway from 1878 to 1898.  Patrick's son Matthew similarly grew up to be Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Hull and Barnsley Railway from 1885 to 1922.

On his arrival at the GNR, Patrick Stirling set out to standardise the railway's rolling stock as well as improve its motive power.  To this end from 1868 he designed two variants of 2-2-2 with 7' 1" driving wheels.

Stirling gave his reasons for selecting a very large driving wheel diameter as lower piston speed for a given track velocity and that, according to him, "the larger the wheel diameter the greater adhesion to the rail", rebuffing suggestions that a coupled design would have more adhesive power. Indeed, he once famously likened a coupled engine to "a laddie runnin' wi' his breeks doon".

These claims were however based on Stirling's own observations of existing GNR 2-4-0s with 6' 6" coupled driving wheels pitted against his own "Seven Foot" 2-2-2s.  On the return journeys from Doncaster to Kings Cross - where he had met the GNR Directorate, the Singles generally beat the coupled engines with trains of equal weight, especially on the uphill gradients between Kings Cross and Potters Bar.

Given that the next generation of GNR express passenger locomotives would need to work fast trains up steep banks at high speed with high cylinder power and adequate adhesion, Stirling began to think about a single driver design based on his final inside-framed outside-cylindered 2-2-2s for the Glasgow and South Western Railway.  These locomotives had 7' diameter driving wheels, 3' 7" carrying wheels, weighed 28 tons 9 cwt. 3qrs and had an exceptional concentration of 15 tons on the driving axle.

Stirling first proposed enlarging the driving wheel diameter to 8' 1" with outside cylinders of 18" x 28" stroke - the largest so far used on any British passenger engine.  Had these cylinders been placed between the wheels, a crank axle - always weaker than a plain one - with an immense throw of 14" would have been required and the boiler centre line raised to an unprecedented 7' 10 1/2" inches to clear it - raising the locomotive's centre of gravity dangerously high.

However, outside cylindered express locomotives with just six wheels and short wheelbases - such as John Ramsbottom's LNWR "Lady of The Lake" class of 1859 - were known to "hunt" at high speed although in October 1862 Robert Sinclair of the Great Eastern Railway had designed a 2-2-2 class with outside frames for the leading and trailing wheels which not only worked well but was recorded as being much steadier riding than many contemporaneous outside cylinder engines on other lines.

In 1868 Patrick Stirling arranged with Samuel Waite Johnson - who had taken over from Robert Sinclair on the Great Eastern in 1866 before moving to the Midland Railway in 1873 - to borrow Sinclair 2-2-2 number 293 for comparative trials against existing Sturrock and Stirling 7' singles on express services between London and Peterborough.  With GNR driver Lloyd at the controls, the Kitson built 1865 vintage 293 with its 7' 1" driving and 3' 7" carrying wheels proved to be no better than its inside cylindered longer wheelbase rivals.

The Sinclair 2-2-2 also had its outside cylinders inclined, thereby shortening the front overhang which would have resulted in cylinders being more efficiently placed in line with the driving wheel centres. To create a new single driver with the power and ride quality needed, Stirling thus had to - reluctantly - incorporate a four wheeled leading bogie into his design, adding to its already considerable expense.  Unlike Sturrock's 215 of 1853 however, Stirling's metal bogie would not warp with moisture and refuse to swivel at speed.  To quote Stirling himself it "laid down the road so that the driving wheels could get hold of it."

However, during 1868 and 1869 Patrick Stirling also oversaw the relaying of the Great Northern line from London to Doncaster with 82 lb per yard double-headed steel rails that could take the hammer blows of 15 tons applied through a single driving axle while at the same time impressing the railway's board of directors with his cheap and economical freight and suburban passenger engines.

Also, on 2 January 1871 the North Eastern Railway opened its direct line from Shaftholme Junction north of Doncaster via Selby - rather than Knottingley - to York, thus giving the triumvirate of Great Northern, North Eastern and North British Railways the shortest route between London and Edinburgh.

Now fully recognised as Locomotive Superintendent after three probationary years, Stirling was able to authorise detailed and design work to start on his new G Class "Eight Footer" - the first example of which was outshopped from Doncaster on 20 April 1870 at a cost of £ 2 033 and carrying the Works Number 50 and the running number 1. 

In fact a sister engine carrying the Doncaster number 49 would not leave The Plant until June 1870 and the running number 1 was available only because the GNR's first locomotive - another Single built by Sharps of Glasgow in 1847 - had already been withdrawn.

Although the graceful proportionate symmetry - and details such as the steam pipe to the blower being carried inside the offside boiler handrail -  made the G class candidates for the title of most beautiful steam locomotive ever, the 53 members built up to 1895 were constantly being refined so that none of them was exactly like the other.

Following trials with Number 1 as-built for example, subsequent G Class locomotives had larger fireboxes and longer wheelbases with Number 1 being later upgraded to this specification and also receiving a 4'2" diameter boiler in December 1880.

Although the G Class locomotives were built in pairs to try and retain some standardisation - and less changes were apparent after 544 was built in 1877 - the ten locomotives built from 1884 to 1893 were officially known as  the G1 sub class and  the final six strong 1894/ 1895 batch numbered 1003 - 1008 as the G2s.  These locomotives had larger cylinders and fireboxes than the rest and cast iron wheel centres replaced wrought iron, slotted splashers were closed in and valve gear and boilers upgraded over all the Stirling 4-2-2s as the years progressed. 

Locomotives 34, 47, 53 and 62 of 1875 were the last to be built without train vacuum brakes although these were retrofitted by the end of the decade albeit with pipework only on the rear buffer beam.  Patrick Stirling was adamant that his 4-2-2s were powerful enough for any GNR train and would never need a pilot engine, although the lack of locomotive brakes on the first 13 examples - and more specifically on locomotive 48 - was a contributory factor to the Abbots Ripton disaster of January 1876.  Front brake pipes were however standard on the G2 sub class as heavier corridor trains made double heading more likely.

As time went on too, splasher slots were plated over from the inside and painted black with white lining before just being painted all over Apple Green in the 1890s.  From locomotive 664 of 1881 the 4-2-2s also had plain splashers with an oval Doncaster worksplate just above the wheel centres and horizontal grab rails on the cab sides.  From the 1880s, too, side valences were added between the driving wheel splashers and the cabs.  Tenders similarly changed from outside to inside frames and gained coal rails.

For nearly 30 years Stirling's "Eight Footers" worked London to York expresses - initially alongside his 2-2-2s and the G Class were his only GNR engines built with either a leading bogie or outside cylinders. 

The steam-sanding fitted 4-2-2s were designed to haul 26 carriages at 47 mph or a 275 ton trains at an average of 50 mph, with a top speed - on lighter trains - of 85 mph. Two of them - numbers 668 and 775 - distinguished themselves in the Races to the North in 1888 and 1895 with 775 travelling the 82 miles from Kings Cross to York in 1 hour 16 minutes in 1895 at an average speed of 64.7 mph.

Patrick Stirling died on 11 November 1895 and was succeeded the following year by 45 year old Henry Alfred Ivatt, by then father of Henry George Ivatt - who would become the last Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London Midland & Scottish Railway.  Henry Alfred Ivatt's daughter Marjorie would also marry Oliver Vaughan Snell Bulleid, the last Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Southern Railway.  More immediately however, he assured the men of Doncaster Works:

"I am following in the footsteps of a very great engineer, and whatever changes I have to make I will see to it that you have plenty of steam.!

H.A. Ivatt sought to rebuild the Stirling G Class with new steam dome boilers without conical brass covers over the safety valves and larger fireboxes with increased grate area. To this end locomotives 1003-1008 ( with a 5 000 lb tractive effort advantage over their earlier classmates ) and 22/ 34/ 93/ 95/ 221 and 544 had frames 4" longer than the rest of the class.  The final four rebuilds also had new Ivatt cabs with longer roofs.

However, the first three Ivatt rebuilds of Stirling 4-2-2s retained the conical safety valve covers with their new domed boilers and 221 was given the domeless boiler off 773 when overhauled in June 1907.

Although locomotive 60 was withdrawn as early as September 1899 - as the Singles were replaced by Ivatt Atlantics better suited to heavy corridor trains - the final G Class engine 1006 did not leave regular traffic until 1916, by which time Number 1 of 1870 had been preserved since September 1907, first at Kings Cross shed and later displayed at the 1909 Imperial International Display in London.

Meanwhile, GNR Number 1 was to make history again in 1938 when it was taken off display at the LNER's York Railway museum and restored to steam: firstly to promote new sets of carriages built for the contemporary Flying Scotsman and then as the first British preserved locomotive to haul an enthusiasts railtour.  The promotional journeys, contrasting seven vintage six-wheeled carriages discovered in Lincolnshire with the latest articulated 14 car sets, took the venerable 4-2-2 from Kings Cross to Grantham and Cambridge while the inaugural Railway Correspondence and Travel Society tour on 11 September 1938 reached Peterborough.

While World War 2 prevented any more RCTS railtours until the late 1940s, GNR Number 1 spent a number of years in steam during the following decades including some spells on the North Yorkshire Moors and Great Central Railways in the early 1980s.

In July 2010 the Stirling Single also visited the now-redundant Waterloo International station in London to take the lead in a live performance of Edith Nesbitt's "The Railway Children" - which had previously sold out at the National Railway Museum. Although the 4-2-2 appeared to be in steam it was however being pushed into place by a Class 08 diesel shunter while a smoke generator provided the special effects.

Although a number of moulds for more modern British locomotives such as the Battle of Britain Pacific and 9F 2-10-0 survived into Airfix and then Dapol ownership however, those for the Stirling Single were tragically destroyed after Rosebud Kitmaster ceased trading and as such made or unmade models are rare.

It was therefore a great honour for me to be presented by Ron with his TWO GNR 4-2-2 models: both unpainted and with some original components replaced by white plastic card and portraying different locomotives.  One model, seen above, was of Stirling's original Number 1 as per the kit instructions while the second, pictured below, was his representation of the G Class as rebuilt by Ivatt.

Having studied the GNR G Class in some depth,  the Kitmaster model does its early version of the subject justice apart from the vacuum pipe on the front buffer beam and - more importantly - the curved splasher over the bogie wheels.  How or why such a typical feature was overlooked I have yet to find out, but unfortunately the front bogie on Ron's Stirling single was stuck on in such a way that I would have had to destroy it to take it off and try to scratchbuild the sort of bogie splasher that Ron DID fit to his Ivatt rebuild.  As such I thought it best to leave the model as it was, with the possible back story that this locomotive was under test from Doncaster Works and would be fully re-assembled afterwards.

The Ivatt representation however was more complete, with plain driving wheel splasher, bogie splasher and side valence between the driving wheels and the cab.  However, it could be argued that while both locomotives have authentic high sided Stirling tenders, the Ivatt rebuild would more likely have had an inside framed tender with extra coal rails.  Similarly, a number of later Stirling and Ivatt 4-2-2s would have had horizontal grab rails on the cab sides.

Also present in the complete Rosebud kit but missing from Ron's modes were oil lamps and coupling hooks, although I am in the process of sourcing these along with some oval Doncaster worksplates.  More problematic however was the lack of decals for the shaded cabside number and GNR initials for the tender.  If anyone has a spare set of these please email me!  I have tried Fox Transfers and some other similar companies but the nearest available today seems to be a sheet of GNR carriage transfers.

The fact that the models were already assembled in a mixture of white plastic card and Rosebud's own lurid green plastic meant that many areas were difficult to paint at all.  As such I started by giving both models an overall coat of matt black before building up the smokebox and cylinders with gloss black, frames in a mixture of black and GWR chocolate brown and dark green parts of the tender in Humbrol Matt 75 Bronze Green.  The Apple Green elements were created with Humbrol acrylic paint with dull silver and brass fittings as needed.