Anyway, that’s probably enough speculation - despite my best efforts, we’ll probably never know exactly what Eric Ravilious saw going over the bridge - it may have been a loco from one of the other LNER constituent companies, or even a composite of various engines - but any ideas welcome!

Or possibly the amusingly proportioned G45 / F7, known by crews as “Crystal Palaces” on account of their huge cabs. www.lner.info/locos/F/f7.php - when seen from the side they definitely fit the profile of Ravilious’s mystery loco.

More likely seems that it would have been something like one of these F5 tank engines (note the Cambridge locomotive with the side window, tall chimney and dome) - and it doesn’t have a tender! www.holdenf5.co.uk/the-history-...

Or perhaps one of the ubiquitous 0-6-0 J15s (this book even notes this side window was added for use on the Colne Valley line)

If Ravilious was using artistic licence with his engine, it does mean he might have omitted a tender to make the locomotive closer to the carriages, but that does open up other candidates - could it have been a lovely T26 “Intermediate”, as preserved at Bressingham? Note the open cab

There is also a 4-4-0 rebuild of an older T19 engine called a D13, which has a similar appearance but importantly has the single cab window and had been relegated to secondary duties by 1935 (most were scrapped though) www.gersociety.org.uk/index.php/lo...

If you say Great Eastern 4-4-0, the main contender would be one of the beautiful Claud Hamilton locos…but despite the wheel arrangement being correct, the rest isn’t quite right - it has a tender and these engines were also probably a bit too much of an express to be on a secondary branch line

No. Apparently the LNER took one look at them and they were scrapped soon after grouping, so ten years before Ravilious’s painting. So, assuming they were local engines still, it must have been an ex-Great Eastern locomotive?

So initially I was wondering if it was one of the weird and wonderful locos that the CV&HR owned, they had six engines over their existence, and pictures of them can be seen on Transports of Delight - could it be one of their odd little tank engines? transportsofdelight.smugmug.com/RAILWAYS/LOC...

The Colne Valley and Halstead Railway was a bit of a curiosity in that it was an independent railway right up until the “grouping” of 1923 when it became part of London & North Eastern Railway (LNER) - so was never part of the Great Eastern Railway (although apparently they were on good terms)

Anyway, back to the locomotive - well, it appears to be a 4-4-0 (ie four little wheels at the front and four bigger driving wheels behind). It also doesn’t have a coal/water tender behind so must be a tank engine of some sort…

Alan Powers suggests that Ravilious may have been inspired by a 1920 watercolour called “The Train” by Norfolk artist Claughton Pellew he would have seen exhibited in the 1920s (according to the Trunch history site, the railway location is Overstrand) trunchhistory.weebly.com/artists.html

I’ve seen it described as “toy-like”, and Alan Powers describes it as a moment of “boyish excitement…with machinery for once active rather than cast onto a backyard limbo” (Eric Ravilious, Artist and Designer, 2013)

Now it’s worth saying that, much as I love Ravilious’s paintings, even I have to say this isn’t the most realistic train I’ve ever seen - it’s very much an *impression* of a train, so it’s probably rather futile trying to identify the locomotive class etc - but where’s the fun in that?

Which brings me on to my next question - we know the “where” now, but what about the “what locomotive is it going over the bridge (at night)”?

In the meantime I’ll have to look at the card version from @rathergoodart Helen got me for
my birthday, which was kind of what prompted this thread.

As for the “where” in terms of “where can I see the painting?” I’m not quite sure! Various books say it’s in a private collection on loan to the Towner art gallery in Eastbourne - they’re currently making a new Ravilious gallery to open in September so hopefully it’ll be in there.

Happily, the old station building from Sible and Castle
Hedingham was relocated brick-by-brick to the lovely Colne Valley heritage railway just down the road.