LNER EB1 Class

The NER/LNER EB1 Class was a group of electric Bo+Bo mineral and freight locomotives built for the North Eastern Railway's Newport–Shildon electrification in County Durham from 1914, designed by Vincent Raven as part of the NER's ambitious programme of main-line electrification on the 1,500 V DC overhead system. The Newport–Shildon route was a heavily-graded coal and mineral line connecting the Durham coalfield with the tidal wharves at Middlesbrough, and electric traction was chosen to avoid the smoke and fumes of steam working in the deep cuttings and over the severe gradients of the route.

The EB1 Class represented one of the earliest serious applications of electric traction to main-line goods working in Britain, and the Newport–Shildon electrification was a pioneering scheme that demonstrated the feasibility of electric freight haulage on the 1,500 V DC overhead system that Raven favoured and that the LNER would later propose for the Woodhead and East Coast Main Line routes. The Bo+Bo wheel arrangement — two powered bogies each with two axles — gave the EB1 good adhesion for the heavy mineral trains on the Shildon gradients.

The Newport–Shildon electrification was eventually abandoned in 1935 when steam traction was judged more economical on the declining coal traffic, and the EB1 locomotives were withdrawn. None was preserved.