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Description
The Merchant Navy class was one of Oliver Bulleid's three classes of pacific locomotives used for 'mixed traffic' as he claimed, alongside the Battle of Britain and the West Country Class. Bulleid was known for his innovations used on these locomotives, such as chain driven valve gear. Originally, all of the Merchant Navies were air smoothed, but this caused some problems and as such, British Railways rebuilt all 30 engines, and as such their air smoothing was removed. Ten of the thirty built survive to this day, with two of them being mainline certified and one is even sectioned at the National Railway Museum to show its internal workings!

Description
The Merchant Navy class was one of Oliver Bulleid's three classes of pacific locomotives used for 'mixed traffic' as he claimed, alongside the Battle of Britain and the West Country Class. Bulleid was known for his innovations used on these locomotives, such as chain driven valve gear. Originally, all of the Merchant Navies were air smoothed, but this caused some problems and as such, British Railways rebuilt all 30 engines, and as such their air smoothing was removed. Ten of the thirty built survive to this day, with two of them being mainline certified and one is even sectioned at the National Railway Museum to show its internal workings!