Southern Railway Loco Class Designation

Thinking about the T3 at Swanage got me thinking, how were Southern Railway loco classes described?

GWR loco's were based on either name, for named classes or by number series eg 57XX

LNER by wheel arrangement expressed by a letter then a number for the class, eg Pacifics are A then 1,2, etc

But as a for example the Swanage railway has T3 & T9 4-4-0's on the line however you also have L1 & V (Schools) 4-4-0's

Moguls are U,N & K 0-4-4tanks are amongst other things M7, O2 & H

So how did it work?

 

I count 120 SR classes. It's all a bit of a jumble partly because the constituent railways' classes were never reclassified. So you have H (SECR 0-4-4T), H2 (LBSCR 4-4-2), H15 ( LSWR 4-6-0). I think you have to separate out the three companies and start from there. But why a C14 is a C14, over to someone else!

 

Per Wikipedia, the LSWR system was based on order numbers - a locomotive class would be named after the order number for the first batch. The order numbers going A1,B1,C1,...Y1 then A2,B2,C2,...Y2 etc.

 

AIUI, LSWR classes were, from about the middle of the Adams period, named after the works order for the first example of the class. So the first T9s were named after works order T9. Subsequent batches had different works order numbers, but kept the same class name. (The older scheme numbered locos after the exemplar loco number, hence the Beattie well tanks were the 298 class; the Adams radial tanks the 415 class etc).

The LBSCR scheme, under Stroudley, grouped locos of similar purpose together. One consequence of that was that as new loco types were introduced, they had the same class designation even if they were substantially different. For example, there was Stroudley class D (an 0-4-2 tender engine); another class D (an 0-4-2T passenger tank engine). When Billinton introduced a substantially different, but operationally similar, 0-4-4T, they also got classed as class D. They got distinguished as "Class D" (the tender engine, normally referred to as the "Lyons" class); "D tanks" (the Stroudley 0-4-2T) and "D bogies" (the Billinton 0-4-4T). Under Marsh, different types with the same class designation got numbers, so you got D1 (the Stroudley 0-4-2T); D2 (the 0-4-2 tender); D3 (the Billinton 0-4-4T). Then if you rebuilt the locos with a new boiler, they got an 'x' suffix. So as built, a Terrier was Stroudley class A; it became class A1 under Marsh and then, if reboilered, an A1x.

The SECR inherited different schemes from the SER and LCDR. The SER scheme had lettered class designations; when they were reboilered they got a "1" suffix. So class Q was a Stirling 0-4-4T; class Q1 was a Stirling 0-4-4T with a Wainwright boiler. Whereas the LCDR scheme was probably the most consistent: locos of the same basic type got a letter, and variants were distinguished by a number, i.e. M, M1, M2, M3 were four iterations of ever-larger 4-4-0 passenger engines. They didn't distinguish locos that had been reboilered.

SECR locos under Wainwright got class letters. If they then got reboilered under Maunsell, they got the "1" suffix - so a D1 was a reboilered 4-4-0. In effect that is a continuation of the Ashford (SER) scheme. Which is all nice and logical, except that for his own SE&CR locos, Maunsell used a 1 suffix for three-cylinder versions of an existing two cylinder loco. So U1 is a three cylinder mogul, and class U is the corresponding 2 cylinder loco. But class W is a three cylinder 2-6-4T for which there is no corresponding two cylinder loco, and you feel it ought really be a W1 ...

Then Bulleid took a Maunsell Q and reboilered it, and called it a Q1 ...

I should write it all up properly tomorrow ...

Tom

 

There were of course some complete oddities. For example, when Maunsell rebuilt some super-anuated Stroudley E1 0-6-0T with an N class pony truck and new cabs, they became E1R 0-6-2T, the “R” presumably meaning “rebuilt”. But taking the L class 4-6-4T and rebuilding as 4-6-0s, they became N15X, presumably because as express passenger 4-6-0s, they were like an N15 (King Arthur) - but different. You can only assume that there were few enough locos and not much intermingling that there really wasn’t much incentive to design a more coherent scheme.

Worth remembering that renaming a class (or renumbering locos) has a big admin overhead in the works and loco sheds, so not something you’d undertake lightly.

Tom

 

I thought the R meant radial?

 

I don’t think so, as they weren’t radial trucks. But the real point is there was no consistent scheme applied. How you get N15X for a rebuilt (but not reboilered) LBSCR tank engine is beyond me!

Tom

 

My suspicion is a silk bag and a collection of scrabble tiles...

Mind you, from an "identifying the loco, so you can select parts for it" point of view, the LMS system made even less sense.

But the New Zealand approach takes the absolute "looks competant but makes no sense" biscuit. (New letter per loco, in date order, except when it's not, and when it's a suburban tank it's a W, but other tanks just fit in. And rebuilds get an extra letter, except when they don't)

 

You mean like this (a WAB)



Tom

 

Bradley implies that the R was for radial (p.45 Part 2 Locos of the LBSCR). The N truck was what would generally be known as a Bissell/Bissel truck (see attached from LocoMag, with the rather hopeful comment that the drawings "are so explicit that further description is hardly needed"). Side control was by inclined slides - the LocoMag article refers to it as a Cartazzi type [truck] and Bradley, probably more accurately, refers to it as having Cortazzi (sic) slides. The E1R truck looks very close to the rear driving axle and it would seem difficult to fit the N "A frame" in, so perhaps there was some modification to convert it into a radial style?

 

Holcroft states (in Volune 1 of Locomotive Adventure) that he “drew” the E1R. In volume 2 he says:

“The E1/R was a rebuild of Stroudley’s E1 o-6-0 type goods tank, converted to 0-6-2 type by addition of an N class radial truck (drawn from parts taken over from Woolwich).”
​

I guess that doesn’t precisely nail down what was included, and what was not, from the Woolwich spares. There is about two pages on the E1/R in volume 2, but most of it is concerned with a discussion of the balancing at speed.

Tom

 

Further, this is what Holcroft writes in Vol. 1:





(I appreciate we have deviated somewhat from the premise of the thread!)

Tom

 

No one (so far as I know) has ever explained how or why the Jubilees were A12. That order was built between May and December 1887 (hence the nickname). Order B12 ran from January to February 1904! I forget where I saw this, but A1 was for 5 sets of 16½ × 20 cylinders in January 1879 (for Beattie tanks, I assume). B1 was the same time (10 tender wheelsets) as was C1 (Copper fireboxes). No idea about D1, but E1 was an 1888 batch of Jubilees. The use of Order Nos. for all works orders, both large and small, explains the gaps in the sequence all the way to A17, the rebuilds of Mr. Drummond's first 4-6-0 class.
I am fairly sure that on the South Western the classes were known by the first build number, probably until the SR takeover. As the attached shows, the two were sometimes used concurrently, but reports of new builds in the Railway Magazine, The Locomotive, &c., all tend to use the number (eg 736 class for the N15). And, of course, locos built by the commercial firms (aka the 'Contract Shop') were always known by number (eg 700 class).
My best guess is that the Ashford view was that the alphanumeric title was more in line with SECR and Brighton practice, so that is how it had to be.
Pat

 

The LMS didn't bother at all! They used the pre group classification, if there was one, new locos just had the power classification, a Black Five was a class 5, a Jubilee was a 5XP.

Back to the Southern, presumably the USA tanks were just given that classification because they were American, then there was the LSWR 700 class, no letter in the designation, also there were duplications, wasn't there two R1 classes?

 

No doubt, if Mr. Maunsell had been given a 'scrap and build' remit, the SR might have done something similar. When you have to keep track of 120 classes (comprising as few as 2 examples, or as many as 100+) a bit more detail is probably helpful.
(Some may add, more in sorrow than in anger, that the LMS MP Dept. in the early years was not an example to follow.)
Pat

 

It was a good thing that they became A12s, whatever the reason. Imagine the confusion if they had been E1s:- after 1923 "E1" could have meant:-

• An L&SWR Adams 0-4-2
• An LB&SCR Stroudley 0-6-0 tank or..
• An SE&CR Maunsell rebuild of a Wainwright 4-4-0!

There were, of course, two R1s, one being the celebrated Wainwright rebuild of the StirlingSER 0-6-0Ts synonymous with the Folkestone Harbour branch, the other being an LC&DR 0-4-4T also two D1s (LB&SCR Stroudley 0-4-2T and SE&CR Maunsell/Wainwright 4-4-0) and two B1s (LB&SCR Stroudley Gladstone 0-4-2 and Wainwright rebuild of the Stirling SER 4-4-0) I can't think of any more examples, but perhaps Tom, who is probably our No. 1 authority on pre-grouping Southern locos, may know of some more duplication I have missed.

 

Not only were there two R1s, but there were two SE&CR R1s ...

One was the reboilered Stirling R class 0-6-0T; the other an LCDR 0-4-4T.

Tom

 

Marginally off topic, but still Southern, with their EMUs, they seemed to have a lavatory fixation. A 2NOL, had no lavatory, a 2HAL had a lavatory in one coach only (half lavatory access) and a 2BIL had a lavatory in each coach!

 

You missed the Q1 ...



... and the Q1 ...



Tom

 

Also K class, the 2-6-4 tanks and the Brighton 2-6-0. Also, what was the 0-6-0 tank, which was from the SECR which ended up at Haydock Colliery in Lancashire?