`St. Peter's School, York, A.D. 627' — A Brief History of a Locomotive

in another, and with the ears satisfied by recordings of station announcements, steam hissing from giant locomotives.

In this atmosphere the exhibits gained a further dimension. There were several working model layouts; a large 1930's vintage '0' gauge collection from Paul McCarter, Timothy Prosser-Higdon's 'oo' gauge marshalling yard (mostly built from scratch), and two other coo' gauge layouts from Richard Greenwell and Oliver Bird.

The skills of the patient modeller were also prevalent; Mr. Graham Metcalfe's superb hand built '0' gauge carriages, Mr. Peter Twyman's hand built '00' gauge locos and Mr. Geoff Bird's working model signals.

Side by side with all this were many exhibits of railway paraphernalia, vintage and modern, and notably a photographic exhibition of the 4818 `St. Peter's School, York A.D. 627' locomotive direct from the National Railway Museum, compiled by Rupert Brown.

The exhibition enjoyed a constant stream of visitors from both schools, and from outside, interestingly they included Mr. A. E. Malton, the original fireman in the loco, 'St. Peter's School'.

I would like to take this opportunity to express our thanks to Mr. Roden and his team from the Railway Society for a very enjoyable event, and I I hesitate to make one suggestion to complete the atmosphere of the next one— a steam generator.

D.J.B.

`St. Peter's School, York, A.D. 627' was one of twenty-seven locomotives which formed the fourth batch of the V2 Class. It was built at Darlington in March, 1939, and was finished in the old N.E.R. tradition, i.e. no works number, green cylinder casings and the class painted on the buffer-beam. In all other respects its livery conformed to the standard L.N.E.R. passenger livery of lined apple green.

A. H. Peppercorn (later C.M.E. of the L.N.E.R. and B.R. Eastern Region) supervised the construction and handed the locomotive over at the naming ceremony on 3rd April, 1939, claiming the locomotive would run two million miles. This ceremony was attended by some eight hundred people and took place on the middle road between platforms 6 and 7 (Scarborough line) at York. The tea was described in the School magazine by a junior boy as being 'gorgeous'. At present only one photograph of St. Peter's School in L.N.E.R. days is known to exist, though it is not available for reproduction.

Virtually nothing is known of the locomotive's record in traffic and I would be grateful if anybody who knows anything about its working life would contact me at the School.

Originally numbered 4818, St. Peter's School, York A.D. 627 was renumbered 847 in 1946 and 60847 after nationalisation in 1948. Whether St. Peter's School was ever painted in L.N.E.R. black is doubtful since no wartime photographs of it are known to exist and also the nameplate photograph shows the L.N.E.R. lining clearly under the grime.

In B.R. days 60847 was painted lined black and eventually B.R. Standard Green.