From the 1860s onward, the Great North of Scotland Railway exclusively used 4-4-0s for all its principal passenger train workings until the LNER era when some Great Eastern Railway 4-6-0 designs were drafted in to augment the fleet. It is a curious fact that several of the GNoSR's 4-4-0 types outlived these newcomers.

This August 1937 study shows James Manson's class 'O' (LNER 'D42') No. 6817 as a shed pilot at Aberdeen's Kittybrewster MPD. She had been built as GNoSR No.17 by Kitson of Leeds in April 1900 and was withdrawn as the last of her class in February 1946.

© Les Hanson-David Hanson Archive