GER Y14 0-6-0 – 564

designer	T W Worsdell
Builder	GER, Stratford Works
Build Date	1912
Operators	GER, LNER, BR
Withdrawn Date	1963
Class	GER: Y14, LNER: J15
Configuration	0-6-0
Owned By	M&GNJRS

Great Eastern Railway’s Y14

The Great Eastern Railway’s Y14 ‘small goods’ class 0-6-0, was designed by TW Worsdell and introduced in 1883 to haul coal trains on the newly opened GN-GE Joint line from Doncaster. They were very successful, and construction was continued until 1913, when the 289th appeared from Stratford Works, making the Y14 numerically the largest class on the GER.

Due to their very low axle loading (13.5 tons) they could work on almost every GER line. 272 Y14’s were passed on to the LNER in 1922 when they were reclassified as J15’s. A total of 127 survived until nationalisation and were allocated the numbers 65350-65479. The last survivors were not withdrawn until the end of steam in East Anglia.

GER Y14 – 564

This historic engine was built as GER no. 564 and left Stratford Works on 22 February 1912. It spent most of its working life in Norfolk and Suffolk. In 1922 and 1936 it was allocated to Norwich Thorpe and also spent time at Yarmouth. After the grouping, the loco was renumbered 7564, then 5462 in November 1946. In October it was transferred to Lowestoft and stayed here for 13 years. In 1949, as a consequence of the nationalisation of British Railways, it became 65462. Both the LNER and BR painted the Ioco plain black.

65462 was allocated to Norwich Thorpe in June 1960 and then moved to Stratford in January 1961. In January 1962, 65462 was retubed at Stratford, before joining the few other remaining London based J15s on standby and Liverpool Street station pilot duties.

The last four J15s (including 65462) were finally withdrawn on 16th September 1962, when steam was eliminated from East Anglia, having outlived many other more modern types of locomotive. It was purchased by the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway Society. It ran for a while in the guise of a J15 locomotive, however an overhaul by the Society which cost more than £350,000 has seen it return to service in a condition closely matching that when it entered service as built by the Great Eastern Railway.