LMS 0-6-0 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class 2F (Locobase 8649)

Data from [], accessed 18 August 2007. Steamindex in turn took its information from Radford, J.B. Derby Works and Midland locomotives. 1971. p. 172.

"These rugged little engines were admirably suited to work dock and other areas where there were tight curves, being on a very short 9ft 6in wheelbase, equally divided. Ten were constructed to O/7137 issued on 30 May 1928, and emerged from Derby Works during December 1928 and January 1929: five being sent to Scotland and the remainder to the Birkenhead and Fleetwood depots ..."

Class 3F Jinty (Locobase 8027)

Data from W T Scott's article in the Railway Preservation Society's 5-Foot 3 journal, January 1968, reproduced on the web at [] (accessed 23 December 2006) and the Wikipedia entry [], same date.

Henry Fowler had rebuilt all of the Midland's 2441 class 0-6-0s (Locobase 10154) with a smaller boiler that had a Belpaire firebox and this class was the newly built follow-on. Fitted with short side tanks over the last two axles, this class was produced by a variety of builders in a relatively short time. In addition the Horwich Works inherited by the LMS from the Lancashire & Yorkshire, Jinties came from Bagnall, Beardmore, Hunslet, North British, and the Vulcan Foundry.

The class met a variety of needs and of the original number, all but five were taken into British Railways in 1948. Three had been lost in France in 1940, Two more went to Ireland's Northern Counties Committee railway in 1944; this latter pair was converted to the 5' 3" gauge. ("Altogether, " says WT Scott of the two Derby expats,"No.18 ran

219,441 miles on the NCC and a total of 612,266 miles (948,785 km) in her life. A suspect crank pin led to her early withdrawal in 1956. No.19 ran 667,521 miles (1,074,709 km) altogether, 291,971 (469,784 km) of them on the NCC. She lasted until 1963 although not doing much work in her last year.")

Meanwhile, the BR's retirements began in 1959 with the last going out of service in 1967.

Class 4F (Locobase 2376)

Data from [] (27 December 2004) and [] (27 December 2004). See also Adrian Tester, A Defence of the Midland/LMS Class 4 0-6-0 published by Crimson Lake.

This large quantity of six-coupled goods essentially repeated the earlier Midland/Fowler production described in Locobase 3064 (See that entry for an extended comment on the design's origins and its many shortcomings and refer to Adrian Tester's counterargument presented here below.)

The one noticeable change was setting up the footplate for left-hand drive rather than the right-hand drive of earlier 4Fs.

Adrian Tester noted that Powell and ES Cox's criticisms disregarded the 4F's significant presence on the LMS (10% of all motive power). Moreover, the comments were "at odds with the higher opinions of the machine held many of those who drove, fired or maintained 4Fs, men with rather closer experience." He found that frame cracks actually occurred at a lower rate than many other LMS-built classes and could often be attributed to manufacturing shortcomings at certain frame suppliers. The bearings were not undersized, he notes, and their failures occurred because LMS chose cheaper bearing material and lubricated them with cheaper oil . Short-lap valve settings didn't inhibit locomotives typically running at low speeds.