Description

With the death of Sir Nigel Gresley in 1941, the position of Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North Eastern Railway was filled by Edward Thompson. Thompson was to immediately make his influence felt by cancelling plans for further locomotives of his predecessor’s V4 class and undertaking his own design of a mixed traffic locomotive, the B1 being the result. Fifty-nine of the class would receive names and they were known as ‘Bongos’ due to the forty-one locomotives of the class named after breeds of antelope, including 8306 (later 1005, then 61005) ‘Bongo‘.

Though Thompson would design a number of other locomotives, the B1 is widely regarded as his most successful. Used throughout the LNER, they would be a common sight on the former Great Eastern lines out of Liverpool Street.