page_title: W. O. Bentley
section_title: Locomotives
hierarchical_section_title: W. O. Bentley / Early life / Locomotives
caption_attribution_description: English: GNR Large Atlantic No. 251, near to Bressingham, Norfolk, Great Britain. GNR Large Atlantic No.251 These large boilered Atlantics were the first engines to be built with a wide firebox as a development from the first Atlantics. No. 251 became symbolic of the Great Northern Railway and this locomotive featured in most of the GNR's advertising and on timetable covers. They proved to be superb locomotives on the east coast express trains and were only surpassed by the larger and more powerful 'Pacific's' such as A3 'Flying Scotsman' and A4 'Mallard'. On loan from National Railway Museum, another boiler from the class is being used to build Brighton H2 Atlantic SR/BR "Beachy Head", which were similar in design.
context_page_description: Walter Owen Bentley, MBE was an English engineer who founded Bentley Motors Limited in London. He designed engines for cars and aircraft. When young he raced cars and motorcycles.
  He was known as "W. O." without any need to add the word Bentley.
context_section_description: The premium five-year apprenticeship with Great Northern, which cost his father £75, taught W.O. to design complex railway machinery and also gave him practical experience in the technical procedures to cast, manufacture, and build it. He later recalled: "The sight of one of Patrick Stirling's eight-foot singles could move me profoundly."   While with Great Northern, he came close to realizing his childhood ambition to drive one of their Atlantic express locomotives, when at the end of his apprenticeship he acquired footplate experience as a second fireman on main-line expresses.  "My longest day”, he said, “was London to Leeds and back, on the return journey doing Wakefield to King's Cross non-stop for 175 miles. This was a total day's run of 400 miles, entailing a consumption of about seven tons of coal, every pound of it to be shovelled. Not a bad day's exercise." He completed his apprenticeship in the summer of 1910 but decided that the railways did not offer him enough scope for a satisfying career.
caption: G N R Atlantic express locomotive No. 251
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