South Eastern 0-6-0 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class 353 (Locobase 10357)

Data from "Mr Stirling's Engines on the South Eastern Ry ," The Locomotive Magazine, Vol IX (22 Aug 1903), p. 115. Works number was 1154.

One of the more prosaic duties of a small locomotive was to move other rolling stock around. Most shunters (switchers) did so in a classification yard in which trains were assembled for revenue service. The car shop at Ashford, however, needed a shunter to move its coaches around before, during, and after they were either constructed or serviced. This engine was the result.

Class O (Locobase 5202)

See [] (visited November 2002) and [] (visited July 2002).

The design originated with James Stirling and originally had a domeless boiler and a rounded cab. Harry Wainwright, when head of the merged South Eastern & Chatham Railway, standardized many of the designs and gave the Os an H-class boiler beginning in the first decade of the 20th century. The resultant O1 had a prominent dome and a straighter-line cab. (In the minds of the crews, the new cab was poorer at fending off the elements than the earlier design.)

Fifty-nine O1s continued on through the 1923 amalgamation that made them part of the Southern Railway. Some were even pulled into British Railways in 1948. According to the Bluebell Railway's page on the O class -- [], last accessed 21 September 2006 -- The secret of the class's longevity lay in the design's light weight: "Stirling, and later Wainwright had kept the axle weight very low indeed. this was essential as the parsimonious SER and later SECR, had permanent way that was lightweight to say the least. the end result was that O1's could go places that many others could not."

Class unknown (Locobase 10219)

Data from "Six-Coupled Goods Engine, S E Ry," The Locomotive Magazine, Vol VII ("April 1902), p. 78.

Another of the many SER engines of the day with James Anson Cudworth's long firebox with midfeather, this class also had wood-centered driving wheels.