NER J25

The NER J25 Class — the LNER classification for the NER Class P1 0-6-0 goods locomotives designed by Wilson Worsdell and introduced from 1898 — was a series of inside-cylinder 0-6-0 goods tender locomotives that formed part of Wilson Worsdell's systematic programme of standard goods locomotive development for the North Eastern Railway, providing reliable and economical goods motive power for the NER's intensive freight operation across the Durham and Yorkshire coalfields and the industrial districts of Teesside and Tyneside.

Worsdell's 0-6-0 goods programme at the NER produced a family of related classes — the J21, J24, J25, J26, and J27 — each representing a development or variant specification suited to slightly different traffic requirements. The P1/J25 was one of the most numerous of these, built in considerable quantities at Darlington Works as the NER's standard medium goods engine for the period around the turn of the century. The class used inside cylinders with Stephenson valve gear, a parallel saturated boiler of adequate capacity for the sustained goods work of the NER's routes, and 4 ft 7¼ in coupled wheels suited to goods haulage rather than high speed.

The J25 gave long and reliable service on NER goods duties, and several examples survived into the BR era. One example, No. 65894 (LNER J27, the closely related successor class), is preserved at the North Yorkshire Moors Railway and represents the NER Wilson Worsdell 0-6-0 goods tradition. No J25 itself is preserved.