A project to rebuild a Great Central Railway Class 2 steam Locomotive No.567 to be based on The Great Central Railways in the UK.

www.GCR567Loco.co.uk

The class 2s where jointly designed and produced by Kitson & Co of Leeds and Parker of the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway (the forerunner to the Great Central) for an Exhibition in Manchester in 1887.
At the time these express 4-4-0s were among the fastest machines on earth able to exceed 60 mph on the Manchester to Grantham leg of the London service.
They were the first of a series of 4-4-0 express locomotives built in large numbers at the Gorton Works until 1899 operating all over the GCR network. With an LNER class designation of "D7" and a nickname of "Green Bogies" they saw service until 1939, none survived into preservation.
Technically the class 2 is relatively simple with 2 x 18" bore 26" stoke inside cylinders, fed by flat face slide valves driving 6ft 9" diameter driving wheels using non-superheated steam.
A number of key components can be employed in the rebuild, we have purchased a tender that survived as a sludge carrier, have reserved a suitable un-machined cylinder block. There is still a posibility of a boiler at Magnapps, Essex, but we may go new build now. We now have NRM archive Kitson drawing and are drawing out the frames.

An outline project budget of £430,000 is envisaged over a 10-year timescale where the build will be a living Exhibition, re-telling the story of Victorian Locomotive Construction.
The project is based on the Great Central Railways of Nottingham and Loughborough, where once built the locomotive could haul the original MSLR & GCR Carriages of the GCR Rolling Stock Trust.

All donations are via the GCRs DCRT & we are beginning to raise funds to allow us to securing key parts. This Yahoo group will form one hub of this activity. Help with any of the above would be gratefully received!

HELP US KEEP THE HISTORY OF THE GCR ALIVE