LNER Class A4 2509 Silver Link

Specifications
Configuration:;
• Whyte	4-6-2
• UIC	2'C1h3
Gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Leading dia.	3 ft 2 in (0.965 m)
Driver dia.	6 ft 8 in (2.032 m)
Trailing dia.	3 ft 8 in (1.118 m)
Boiler pressure	250 psi (1.72 MPa)
Cylinders	Three
Cylinder size	18.5 in × 26 in (470 mm × 660 mm)
Loco brake	Steam
Train brakes	LNER: Vacuum

Type and origin
Power type	Steam
Builder	LNER, Doncaster Works
Serial number	1818
Build date	September 1935

Silver Link
	Silver Link at Doncaster Works in March 1963, shortly before it was broken up for scrap
Type and origin
Power type	Steam
Builder	LNER, Doncaster Works
Serial number	1818
Build date	September 1935
Specifications
Configuration:;
• Whyte	4-6-2
• UIC	2'C1h3
Gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Leading dia.	3 ft 2 in (0.965 m)
Driver dia.	6 ft 8 in (2.032 m)
Trailing dia.	3 ft 8 in (1.118 m)
Boiler pressure	250 psi (1.72 MPa)
Cylinders	Three
Cylinder size	18.5 in × 26 in (470 mm × 660 mm)
Loco brake	Steam
Train brakes	LNER: Vacuum
Performance figures
Tractive effort	35,455 lbf (157.7 kN)
Career
Operators	LNER
Class	A4
Number in class	35
Numbers	LNER 2509, 14, BR 60014
Official name	Silver Link
Disposition	Scrapped at Doncaster Works in 1963

Silver Link was the first London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) A4 Class locomotive, built in 1935 to pull a new train called the Silver Jubilee.

History

Silver Link made its inaugural journey from King's Cross on 29 September 1935. It reached a speed of 112 miles per hour (180 km/h), breaking all previous records. The record provoked the LNER and their chief rival the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) into a highly competitive speed war, each attempting to outdo the other by building ever faster locomotives. The main protagonists were Sir Nigel Gresley, LNER's chief mechanical engineer, and his counterpart at LMS, Sir William Stanier.

Silver Link was so named after a line in a poem about love by Sir Walter Scott, which reads:

True love's the gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven;
It is not fantasy's hot fire,
Whose wishes, soon as granted, fly;
It liveth not in fierce desire,
With dead desire it doth not die;
It is the secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie,
Which heart to heart, and mind to mind,
In body and in soul can bind.[1]

Allocated to Kings Cross shed, it was withdrawn from service on 29 December 1962 when the East Coast Main Line express services were taken over by Deltic diesel locomotives. It was not preserved after withdrawal and was broken up for scrap at Doncaster Works on 7 September 1963, on the same site where it had been built nearly twenty eight years earlier.[2][3]

Two instances of the Silver Link nameplate are on display at the National Railway Museum, York, UK.[4]

References

Boddy, M.G.; Neve, E.; Yeadon, W.B. (April 1973). Fry, E.V. (ed.). Locomotives of the L.N.E.R., part 2A: Tender Engines - Classes A1 to A10. Kenilworth: RCTS. p. 134. ISBN 0-901115-25-8.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
http://railwayphotoprints.co.uk/image/detail/41%5B%5D
National Railway Museum, object number: 1975-7609

External links

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[2] Boddy, M.G.; Neve, E.; Yeadon, W.B. (April 1973). Fry, E.V. (ed.). Locomotives of the L.N.E.R., part 2A: Tender Engines - Classes A1 to A10. Kenilworth: RCTS. p. 134. ISBN 0-901115-25-8.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

[3] ttp://railwayphotoprints.co.uk/image/detail/41%5B%5D

[4] National Railway Museum, object number: 1975-7609