NER 708 Class

The North Eastern Railway 708 Class was a class of 0-6-0 freight steam locomotives designed by Edward Fletcher in 1870, with seventy built. It was introduced for the large increase in long-distance freight traffic from Newcastle and Darlington to York and Leeds in the late 1860s, using outside sandwich frames, and it was the first NER class built in large numbers. The first fifty were built at Newcastle by Robert Stephenson and Company, works numbers 1961 to 1980 and 2021 to 2050, between June 1870 and December 1871 and numbered 706 to 755. A further twenty were ordered from R and W Hawthorn and introduced in 1872 and 1873. Fletcher soon began an inside-framed version, the 398 Class. Two locomotives suffered boiler explosions in 1879 and 1880 and were repaired, and the class was withdrawn between 1903 and 1911.