Development of Locomotive 23 



in plan or detail, Stirling worked to his 

 first machine, which bore the historic 

 number " i ". She is now in the L.N.E.R. 

 museum at York. 



Right through the years when the West 

 Coast lines were throwing out speed chal- 

 lenges to the East Coast route, the " eight- 

 footers " took the Great Northern racing 

 trains. Whilst the West Coast partners 

 were striving their hardest, often using 

 two engines to help in speed, the magnifi- 

 cent green-coated " singles " on the Great 

 Northern ran without turning a hair, ready 

 to sprint at any speed required. Nor was 

 there need to reduce their loads to get 

 this speed. 



Had trains remained fairly light, we 

 might still have seen these racehorses of 

 the rail in all their glory, but, alas, the 

 trains would persist in growing up as well 

 as the locomotives. This type of engine 

 could not grow because the limit of weight 

 which might be placed upon a single axle 

 was almost reached when the ' eight- 

 footers " first showed their speed in 1870. 



