2-6-2 Steam Locomotives in Great Britain

Class Fowler/3P (Locobase 3754)

Data from Bryan Attewell ([] Steam locomotion simulator (April 2000 edition), supplemented and corrected by [], last accessed 10 May 2008; and "2-6-2 Mixed Traffic Engine-Power Class 3 MT" diagram from LMS Drawing Office Derby" from Ex-LMS Locomotives diagram compilation by David Faulkner supplied in July 2025 by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange collection. See also Graham Glover, British Locomotive Design 1825-1960 (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1967)

Glover wrote that only that these call "for no further mention". [] (visited 2 Sept 2004) quotes Cox as commenting ":' .. . in 1930 one of the feeblest locomotives of modern times was produced, under boilered, carrying too much deadweight for its power, and retaining a thoroughly inefficient front end.. .'". The design had a Belpaire firebox of decent size and a surprisingly large superheater given the criticisms about the class's poor steaming.

Stanier's update of the Fowler design was positively mediocre; see Locobase 3755.

Class Stanier / 3P / 3MT (Locobase 3755)

Data from British Locomotive Types 1943 edition (p 40), supplied by Clive Mortimore in a 26 January 2016 post to the [], last accessed 18 April 2019.See also Graham Glover, British Locomotive Design 1825-1960 (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1967).

Glover noted these had 17.5 sq ft grates, which was true of the first 50.

Powell [Powell, A.J. Stanier locomotive classes. 1991] is quoted by [] (visited 2 September 2004): "They were still poor locomotives" [like the Fowler locomotives discussed in Locobase 3754] and the wheelbase "could with advantage have been reduced by 18 in [457 mm] or more". A real mystery to Locobase is why Stanier would have chosen to reduce the superheater to such a small installation.

"There was a very small superheater of only seven elements which did nothing to improve the steaming." "...the side tanks were on the shallow side and their limited capacity sometimes restricted their working range". They "were undoubtedly Stanier's least successful design."

Note that, according to the Wikipedia entry, the class was delivered with three different boilers and two different fireboxes. The first 50 had a total of 879 sq ft (81.67 sq m) of evaporative heating surface (104 sq ft/9.66 sq m in the firebox) and 17 1/2 sq ft grates. The next 24 were given larger boilers totalling 966 sq ft/89.74 sq m of heating surface (107 sq ft/9.94 sq m in the firebox) and 19 1/4 sq ft grates. The remaining 66 were completed with the 1,109-sq ft 6A boiler mated to the same firebox. As noted above in Powell's account, all of these engines had derisory superheater installations.