#LNER 2744 Grande Parade

[edwardthomasnw]

Been on an A1/A3 kick as of late, and 'Grande Parade' has drawn my interest

The original 2744 was built in 1928, entering service in August. She had 9 and a bit years of incident-free service until the Castlecary Rail Disaster, 10th December 1937. Going light on the details of the event for the purposes of this post, but the damage to 2744 was sufficient for Doncaster to just build a whole new engine.

Ouch.

The replacement (scroll to Works Visits or Summary for the mention) fared rather better, lasting through to BR days racking up 25 years and 7 months of service.

See also: The locomotive was recovered and taken to Cowlairs Works where it took some time to restore it to a condition in which it could be towed to Doncaster. The January 1938 Railway Observer reported that work had begun on the erection of a replacement locomotive at Doncaster, although the remains of the original were still at Cowlairs. From an accounting perspective this was a “repair” of the original but in practice it was a completely new locomotive assembled largely from stock components. The locomotive emerged from Doncaster Works on 14th April 1938 carrying a boiler that had last seen use on A3 2544 “Lemberg” whilst the tender had last been attached to A1 2579 “Dick Turpin”. The June 1938 Railway Observer states that new motion, stamped “2744”, had been provided and that the works plate fitted to the replacement locomotive, proclaimed it to be Doncaster 1694 of 1928.

The original locomotive reached Doncaster on 2nd April 1938 where it was dismantled with anything reusable going into the pool of spare parts. The boiler was overhauled and subsequently emerged fitted to A3 2749 “Flamingo” during its next works visit whilst the tender eventually emerged from the works attached to A3 2752 “Spion Kop”. (Also a bit of a scroll there so just copied the relevant bit)

Considering what the RWS interpretation of that would be, cause like. Henry.

I've got my own headcanon for henhouse, but this is rather different as it's literally stated to be a replacement. They started a new one before the original was brought back.

Just kinda wondering there as to whether you could say something of the 1928 engine went across, what with the Works Plates being the same and all, or if the on-paper-repair-but-actually-brand-new thing would put it in the more literal variant of the "Two Henry's" thing.

In the latter case, how would the other A1s & A3s take it? How would the new engine themself handle it?

Discuss