0-6-2 Steam Locomotives in Great Britain

Class 25 (Locobase 10337)

Data from "Rhondda & Swansea Bay Ry," The Locomotive Magazine, Volume VIII [8] (13 June 1903), p. 405-406. (Thanks to Hughie Bristow for his 9 July 2024 email noting similarities among Kitson radial tanks supplied to coal roads in Wales at the same time. He later supplied diagrams showing wheelbases as well.) Works numbers were 4106-4107 in 1902 and 4255-4256 in 1904.

Compared to the dozen radial tanks that immediately preceded them on the R&SB (Locobase 10335), this pair had larger boilers and larger cylinders, which made up for the slightly taller drivers the cylinders supplied with power. Hughie Bristow noted that the Lambton Colliery tanks described in Locobase 6315 and Locobase 6316 most likely were cut from the same cloth and delivered only slightly later in time.

Upon the railway grouping of 1923, the Great Western took control of several Welsh coal road including the RSBR. This quartet now bore road numbers 164-167. by September 1936, all had been withdrawn from GWR service.

Class 8/168 (Locobase 10335)

Data from "Rhondda & Swansea Bay Ry," The Locomotive Magazine, Volume VIII (13 June 1903), p. 405. Works numbers were 3311-3312 in 1889, 3513 in 1890, 3566-3567, 3569-3570 in 1894, 3570-3571 in 1895, and 3882-3885 in 1899.

The R&SB was built in Wales to serve the coal fields of the Rhondda Valley and link them with the shoreside town of Swansea. Altogether, about 20 miles (32 km) of railway was built through mountainous terrain offering several stretches of truly challenging grades and the the nearly two-mile (3.2 km) long Rhondda Tunnel, which would be the longest railway tunnel to be built in Wales.

Challenging as well was the opposition to the project, particularly from the Taff Vale Railway, from the time it was proposed in 1882. This forced changes in the intended route and much greater capital outlay, which delayed the railway's opening and pushed its break-even point much farther into the future. Indeed, the Rhondda's operation fell to the Great Western in 1907, which absorbed it altogether under the Grouping scheme in 1922.

At the heart of the R&SB's traffic demand was coal movement. Thus, it isn't surprising that of the 15 locomotives that shared the same basic dimensions, a dozen would have three axles for adhesion. Otherwise, this class and the three passenger tanks shown in Locobase 10336 were essentially identical.

Welsh coal road engines mostly continued to run on the same rails, but under new colors. The GWR withdrew five in the late 1920s and the rest followed in 1934-1936.