[1] Vincent Raven was born the son of a clergyman at Great Fransham rectory in Norfolk and educated at Aldenham School in Hertfordshire.

In 1910 he became Chief Mechanical Engineer on Wilson Worsdell's retirement (The title of the post had changed from Locomotive Superintendent in 1902).

The most memorable of these was the Class Z Atlantics which had a reputation for speed and good riding on East Coast Main Line expresses north of York.

[3] Ten centre cab electric locomotives of 1100 horsepower were built at Darlington Works for this, numbered in a series from 3 to 12 (1 and 2 were a different design of 1902 for the Tyneside electrification at 600 volts DC).

Following the success of the Shildon–Newport scheme, Raven set about planning the electrification of the main line from York to Newcastle, also at 1500 volts DC.

Both third rail and overhead power supply systems were considered and some experiments were done with dummy collector shoes fitted to the bogie of a steam locomotive to assess the mechanical performance at speed.

After the grouping, the proposed electrification of the East Coast Main Line was quickly abandoned, although it was electrified by British Rail in the late 1980s.

At the direction of the prime minister, David Lloyd George, in September 1915 Raven was appointed as superintendent of the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich in order to oversee the production of munitions for the Great War.

He resigned in 1924 and was appointed to the Royal Commission on New South Wales Government Railways, in company with Sir Sam Fay.

In 1913, Guendolen married Edward Thompson, who would later succeed Nigel Gresley as Chief Mechanical Engineer of the LNER.