Bulleid Merchant Navy 35014 Nederland Line

Bulleid’s Merchant Navy Class, 4-6-2 Pacific, 35014 ‘Nederland Line’

Designed for the Southern Railway by Oliver Bulleid as Class 21C, the first members of the class were constructed during the Second World War and the last of the 30 locomotives in 1949. The class members were named after the Merchant Navy shipping lines involved in the Battle of the Atlantic, and latterly those which used Southampton Docks, operated by Southern Railway during the period.

Incorporating a number of new developments in British steam locomotive technology, the design of the Merchant Navy class was among the first to use welding in the construction process, enabling easier fabrication of components during the economic austerity of the war era. In addition the locomotives featured thermic syphons in their boilers and the controversial Bulleid chain-driven valve gear. Most noticeable of all however was the air smoothed casing leading to nicknames such as ‘spam cans’ or ‘packets’ and the locomotives were equipped with the visually distinctive 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) Bulleid Firth Brown driving wheels which were lighter, yet stronger than the spoked equivalent.These proved to be successful and were later used on other Bulleid classes.

35014 was one of the second series locomotives, constructed as Eastleigh Works and entering traffic in January 1945. Starting life in the wartime black livery, it was repainted in Southern’s Malachite Green later that year. After nationalisation, all the Merchant Navy locos were rebuilt by British Railways to a design by R. G. Jarvis. The air-smoothed casing was removed and replaced with conventional boiler cladding, and the chain-driven valve gear was replaced with three separate sets of Walschaerts valve gear. The rebuilds were provided with a completely revised cylindrical smokebox, a new Lord Nelson-type chimney and LMS-style smoke deflectors. Together with the lack of air-smoothed casing, these helped reduce the problem of smoke and steam obscuring the driver's vision of the line. The illustration shows ‘Nederland Line’ as it would have looked in 1960 with the AWS fitted and cast trailing truck, coupled to a 6,000 gallon tender.

This meticulously researched illustration is based on GA drawings from the NRM archive and hundreds of reference images.

Posters printed on 200gsm satin stock. Available in 3 sizes.

Every attempt is made to ensure the featured locomotive is accurate given the available references. Colours on the prints may look slightly different to their screen representations.