[8] Part of the requirement was for express passenger engines for the newly completed London Extension.

Pollitt's locomotives of class 11 were performing satisfactorily but the piston-valved 11A 4-4-0s, intended for use on Marylebone expresses had been problematic.

[9] The 11Bs therefore emerged as a robust and substantially enlarged evolution of GCR Class 11, with the then-conventional slide valves.

[1] Gorton was busy at the time and the engines were needed urgently, so outside builders (Sharp, Stewart and Vulcan Foundry) were used.

[7] As intended the 11Bs displaced Pollitt's 11As on the London Extension services, with engines shedded at Leicester, Gorton and Neasden.

[6] 11Bs then found uses on the older parts of the Great Central Railway network, based especially in Sheffield and Annesley, with others scattered elsewhere.

[6] By the Grouping, increasing numbers of the engines had been rebuilt with larger superheated boilers and piston valves becoming GCR Class 11D.

1040 was hauling an express passenger train which was derailed at Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire due to excessive speed on a curve.

However effective they were, Robinson clearly identified a need for larger express passenger locomotives, with the 8B "Jersey Lilies" appearing in 1903,[11] very soon after the 11Bs were delivered.

[6][15] The first D9 was withdrawn by the LNER in 1939 and 26 remained in service on nationalization of the railways in 1948, mainly in operation on the ex Cheshire Lines Committee routes.

[16] In 1904 Bassett-Lowke produced a Gauge 1 model of an 11B, complete with appropriate coaches, in association with a Great Central Railway marketing initiative.