Locomotives Prior to 1862 Prior to 1862 the companies that had built the various parts of the network operated locomotives from a variety of engineering companies. Generally the wheel arrangements were and for most classes of locomotives. It was not until 1850 that the Eastern Counties Railway under
Gooch built a locomotive at the then newly opened Stratford Works. Number 20 was the first of a class of six locomotives (although three more were also built by
R B Longridge and Co of Bedlington, Northumberland). Slightly bigger improved versions of the class followed in 1853 and 1854. In 1859
Sinclair (
Chief mechanical engineer (CME) of the Eastern Counties Railway and later first CME of the Great Eastern) started some form of standardisation with the Y Class locomotives, of which 110 were built by various engineering firms (including one French firm). The last locomotives of this class were withdrawn in 1894.
1862 to 1880 Sinclair's first design for the was the
W class single drivers built between 1862 and 1867 by a number of engineering firms. Two of these locomotives were rebuilt from the to a configuration later in their lives and these two, plus one of the original locomotives, carried a canary yellow livery. Another member of this class carried a cream livery "encircled by garlands of roses" when it was used to haul a special train in 1863 for the Prince and Princess of Wales (
Edward VII and
Queen Alexandria) after their marriage at
Westminster Abbey. These locomotives were responsible for running express services on the Great Eastern and in later life worked the Cathedrals Express to Lincoln and York. Scrapping began in 1883 with the last two locomotives being withdrawn in 1894. The only other classes of locomotive that Sinclair designed were a class of five engines built for the North Woolwich line and a class of engines known as Scotchmen because they were built by
Neilson, Reid & Co of Glasgow. Both classes entered service in 1864/65. Generally Great Eastern locomotives carried a pea-green livery with black lining at this time. When
Johnson took over as CME, the was so short of locomotives that he persuaded the
North British Railway to let the GER have five locomotives of a class being built by the
Neilson, Reid & Co for them on loan. These formed the basis of the 40 strong 'little Sharpie' (or
Number 1) class, with 10 being built by Stratford Works and the other 30 by
Sharp Stewart hence the nickname. The GER was working many trains on the
London Tilbury and Southend Railway at this time and the Sharpies were deployed on this traffic. The last two were withdrawn in 1913. The next Johnson class was an goods engine (
Class 417) introduced in 1867 and 1868 and numbering 60 engines. A number of these engines had hinged chimneys for use through Silvertown tunnel on the
North Woolwich line which had limited headroom. Scrapping began in 1888 with the final locomotive withdrawn in 1899. Another more powerful design followed in 1872/3 and was known as the
477 class. Introduced in 1872 and 1873, this 50-strong class was built by 5 different companies, and was notable for being the first engines with a six-wheeled tender. All were withdrawn between 1898 and 1902. The growth of London suburban traffic saw a requirement for additional tank engines. The GER borrowed some
Metropolitan Railway A Class engines in the early 1870s and had 15
T7 class engines built, followed by some engines, one of which was the first locomotive to carry the distinctive GER Royal Blue livery. The final locomotives introduced by Johnson were two
C8 class locomotives which were built with no engine brakes and no dedicated tenders. These locomotives, numbers 305 and 306, were frequently used on royal trains and finished their careers as station pilots at St Pancras and Liverpool Street. The 0-4-4T
61 class was the first
Adams engine, and these 50 engines were built for suburban traffic. Ten locomotives (Class 61) followed between 1877 and 1879 and these lasted until 1907. Adams next design was a class known as Ironclads. Unfortunately these were not very successful on passenger traffic and were soon deployed on freight workings. The next Adams locomotive was the first UK locomotive built in 1877. Another failure, this class of 15 locomotives were withdrawn after a working life of eight years, mostly working coal traffic between Peterborough and London. Adams was succeeded by
Massey Bromley who made the decision that henceforth more locomotives would be built at Stratford Works. Up to this point only 80 had been built. However Bromley's first class of locomotives were built by
Dubs and Kitson with 12 allocated to Stratford and four each to Norwich and Yarmouth sheds. One of these locomotives was later equipped with oil-burning capabilities, but the increasing demands of railway traffic saw these engines withdrawn by 1893 after a relatively short life. Bromley also designed an class which lasted some 24 years in traffic. He also designed the
E10 class some of which were fitted with
condensing gear and operated over the
East London Line to New Cross and East Croydon.
1880 to 1922 in original Great Eastern blue livery with decorative features as depicted in a 1910 colour plate by W.J. Stokoe. Between 1880 and 1922 the Great Eastern produced some distinctive locomotives, and several of these have been preserved. Almost all of the Great Eastern's locomotives were, after 1880, built at
Stratford Works and many lasted until the end of steam on the Great Eastern. Express services on the were latterly in the hands of the
Class S69 (LNER class B12) locomotives. Designed by James Holden and also known as the '1500 class', these engines were built at Stratford Works (51 engines) and William Beardmore (20 engines). Ten engines were later built for the London and North Eastern Railway by
Beyer Peacock, and it is one of these locomotives that is preserved today. These locomotives were built to succeed the three classes of employed by the on express services which were becoming heavier as the railways prospered. Classes
S46,
D56 and
H88 (LNER D14, D15, and D16) were collectively nicknamed "Claud Hamiltons" because the first S46 (built at Stratford in 1900, numbered 1900) was named after the then-current chairman of the GER,
Lord Claud Hamilton. Most of the "Clauds" were later rebuilt by the LNER; the final one was withdrawn in 1960 and scrapped. Local suburban traffic was dealt with by numerous 2-4-2T and 0-6-0T locomotives belonging to several different classes.
Stratford Engine Shed, for instance, had 163 2-4-2T engines of four classes. As trains got heavier, these locomotives were replaced by the
Class L77 0-6-2T (LNER N7) designed by
Alfred John Hill and introduced in 1915. 134 were built, including a number after the LNER took over in 1923; one is preserved. The 2-4-2Ts, of which none survive, were mostly cascaded out of suburban traffic by the 1940s and worked until the late 1950s on branch lines. Mention should also be made of the
T26 (LNER E4) s, which remained in service as the last locomotives of this wheel arrangement in Great Britain. Derived from the larger T19 , 100 of these locomotives were built between 1891 and 1902 and worked a variety of trains across East Anglia. The last one, GER no. 490, was preserved as part of the
National Collection when withdrawn in 1959. Today it resides at
Bressingham Steam Museum, Norfolk. Some of the
T19s, incidentally, were rebuilt as s (class T19R) between 1905 and 1908, having been taken off express work by the "Claud Hamiltons". As LNER class D13, the last worked until 1944. goods designs of this period were invariably tender engines. The main freight class built by the GER was
Worsdell's
Y14 (LNER J15) class. 289 examples were produced between 1883 and 1913 with most being built at Stratford Works, although a small number were built by
Sharp Stewart. On 10–11 December 1891, the Great Eastern Railway's
Stratford Works built one of these locomotives and had it in steam with a coat of grey
primer in just 9 hours 47 minutes; this remains a world record. The locomotive then went off to run on
Peterborough to
London coal trains before coming back to the works for the final coat of paint. It lasted 40 years and ran a total of 1,. As freight traffic grew heavier after 1900, more 0-6-0 freight locomotives were built including classes
F48 (LNER J16),
E72 (LNER J18),
G58 (LNER J17) and
D81 (LNER J20); the Y14s, meanwhile, went into general local and branch line service, on both passenger and freight trains. The last Y14s ran until 1962, and no. 564 is preserved on the
North Norfolk Railway; and G58 no. 1217 (withdrawn 1962) is in the National Railway Museum, York. Shunting was generally in the hands of locomotives although of note were the
Class J70 tram engines employed at
Ipswich docks and on the
Wisbech and Upwell Tramway. This class of locomotive was later the inspiration of the
Reverend Awdry's
Toby the tram engine. Finally mention must be made of the
Decapod which was the first built in Britain, and possibly the only locomotive built for purely political purposes in order to block the passage through Parliament of a new rival scheme for an electric railway.
Livery In the early years, the Great Eastern locomotive livery changed often, first being held in various shades of green and later black. In 1882 the well-known Ultramarine Blue livery was introduced. It consisted of
Ultramarine Blue over an
undercoat of
French Grey, with black
smokebox and
vermillion buffer beams and lining. From 1915 locos were not given a top coat and ran in French Grey undercoat but with the boiler bands picked out in black.
Locomotive stock (1923) Numbers of each locomotive class and running numbers (first and last numbers only) in 1922, prior to the
1923 Grouping. Note that the numbering is not necessarily contiguous:
Preserved locomotives The following GE locomotives are preserved: there are plans to build a replica steam locomotive - a class
M15 .
Coaching stock Whilst not being at the forefront of carriage development, there were a number of interesting developments on the worth noting.
Main line Even by 1900 bogie coaches were rare on , with trains of six-wheelers being the norm. It was not until 1897 that the first bogie stock appeared, and these were a comparatively short long. They contained two first-class compartments with lavatories sandwiched between four third-class compartments and a luggage compartment. The GER supplied separate luggage compartments for most of its main line stock. In 1900 an updated version had a corridor and third-class access to the lavatories but no corridor connections to other carriages. In 1904 Stratford produced a complete corridor train (this means a person can walk from the first to the last carriage whilst the train is moving). Despite the trend to bogied stock, Stratford still included three 6-wheeler carriages and a 4-wheeled luggage van in this formation. The other vehicles were all bogied stock and included a kitchen car. This train was also fitted for steam heating throughout and was employed on Liverpool Street - Parkeston Quay services. In 1906 a new train set was produced for the North Country Continental train (see below) and in 1907 for the Norfolk Coast Express (see below). The latter was notable for being the first all corridor set built by Stratford Works. However, with the restaurant sets built in 1900 being corridor coaches, more corridor coaches were being added to main line sets. The livery of the stock was
teak (effectively varnished wood) but in 1919 the decision was taken to paint all stock dark red. At the grouping in 1923 however all stock reverted to the teak livery.
Pullman The introduction of Pullman cars to the was the idea of American General Manager Henry Worth Thornton. These were tried across the network and required payment of a supplementary fare. Unfortunately it was not a success although they were used on Liverpool Street - Harwich Continental trains for many years.
Dining and restaurant In 1891 the Great Eastern introduced the first restaurant car to its North Country Continental service. In 1899
Stratford Works produced four restaurant car sets consisting of three cars vestibuled together but without any corridor connections. This meant passengers had to spend the whole journey in the restaurant car. These were employed on services from Cromer and Yarmouth to Liverpool Street.
Suburban In 1900 the majority of suburban trains were composed of four-wheeler carriages. Interior design was spartan and around 1900 third-class passengers sat on bare boards five abreast, second-class passengers on cushions also five abreast, while first-class passengers sat four abreast and enjoyed more legroom. In 1899 James Holden produced the first six passengers sat abreast carriages in a 13-carriage, third-class only train (each carriage was long and wide and had five compartments). This set, which also included such modern features as slam lock doors and gas tail lamps became the model for future suburban carriage design. In 1899 Holden built the first GER all-bogied suburban train and although a success, the next one did not follow until 1911. The made every effort to maximise the capacity of its suburban carriages to deal with the rise in usage. In the early 1900s some four-wheeler carriages were cut in half longitudinally and a section inserted to make them wider in order to increase the capacity. More bogied suburban trains followed in 1911 and were deployed on the Ilford, Gidea Park and Loughton services. By 1915 A. J. Hill instigated a policy of converting old four-wheel carriages into bogied stock and some 500 four-wheeled carriages were converted this way. The GER had a reputation for doing things on the cheap and this certainly was cheaper than building new stock.
Ships The also operated a number of
ferries.
Cranes The had a total of 11
breakdown cranes. Numbers 1a, 2a and 3a were built at Stratford Works in 1885 initially as hand cranes. They were converted to steam cranes at Stratford 1905/06 and lasted into LNER days. Three examples built by
Cowans, Sheldon & Company were purchased between 1892 and 1899. With lifting capacity of they were employed on permanent way work. Three more cranes (numbers 4a, 5a and unnumbered) were also built at Stratford c1907. The unnumbered example was lost at sea during the First World War whilst in War Department use. All three cranes had a lifting capacity of and were used as breakdown cranes. 4a and 5a worked from Ipswich (until 1967) and March (until 1962). The last two cranes (number 6a and SB4) were built by
Ransomes & Rapier of
Ipswich in 1913 and 1919. With a lifting capacity of both were employed on railway work until the 1960s. During LNER days SB4 was frequently used at publicity events to give people an aerial ride in an old wagon body. While 6a was transferred away from the shortly after 1923, SB4 was allocated to Stratford, Norwich and March before moving north to the Sheffield area.
Buses and horses The May 1911 issue of the
Great Eastern Railway Magazine (the in-house magazine of the ) stated the company had 1,750 horses the majority of which worked in the London area. Some wagon shunting work was carried out by horses but they would have found widespread work hauling delivery carts. The Great Eastern built buses at Stratford and ran a number of omnibus services including Halesworth to Southwold. ==Hotels and other business interests==