The Great Eastern Railway’s ‘N7’ 0-6-2Ts were powerful and capable suburban tank engines and now for the first time we can own one in ‘OO’ gauge. MIKE WILD inspects this Oxford Rail product which debuted in 2019.
HILL'S PUNCHY ‘N7’ 0-6-2Ts were designed to take charge of the Great Eastern Railway’s (GER) intensive commuter services from London Liverpool Street. The first entered service in 1915 for comparison trials between saturated and superheated boiler designs and ultimately 134 were built by the GER and its successor the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) by 1928.
The ‘N7s’ proved themselves the masters of the their work and took charge of heavy commuter workings formed of LNER ‘Quad-Art’ articulated non-corridor stock, and other carriage designs, on a daily basis. The majority were allocated to Stratford depot in East London, but later in their career the class could be found at Ipswich, Cambridge, Norwich and Lincoln, amongst others, as their original work began to be taken over by multiple units.
Today just one ‘N7’ remains in preservation – LNER 7999, (BR 69621), which is currently awaiting overhaul at the East Anglian Railway Museum following a period in service at the North Norfolk Railway alongside the sole surviv…
