London, Brighton & South Coast 2-2-2 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class Abergavenny (Locobase 10106)

Data from "The Locomotive History of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway," The Locomotive & Railway Carriage & Wagon Review, Vol III (December 1898), p. 182. See also J N Maskelyne, "The Express Locomotives of the London, Brighton and South Coast", Locomotive News and Railway Notes, Volume I [1], No. 1 (10 March 1919), p. 3.

This was a single Single-wheeler that had a long career, being delegated to take the night boat train out of New Cross and later being stationed at Tunbridge Wells. Maskelyne hailed the locomotive, saying "[I]n spite of her small dimensions the sturdy little engine managed to put in a tremendous amount of good solid work!" This included nine straight years of hauling the 3:45 from Victoria to Tunbridge Wells.

At some later point it was refitted with 244 1 3/4" that yielded 1,006 sq ft of heating surface. (Maskelyne claims that at her retirement in 1910, Abergavenny had never been rebuilt.)

Class G (Locobase 8119)

Data from "Express Passsenger Engine, London, Brighton and South Coast Railway", Railway Engineer, Volume 13, No 10 (October 1892), pp. 279-280. See also Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884, which is reproduced by Project Gutenberg at ftp://sailor.gutenberg.lib.md.us/gutenberg/1/1/6/4/11647/11647-8.txt, accessed 25 January 2007. See also J N Maskelyne, "The Express Locomotives of the London, Brighton and South Coast", Locomotive News and Railway Notes, Volume I [1], No.2 (25 March 1919), p. 3. (Thanks to Alexander Blessing for his 2 February 2023 email supplying the correct valve gear, engine wheelbase, coal and water capacities, tube length, and grate area:

These were the production versions of a tall-drivered Single design by Stroudley that began with the Grosvenor (Locobase 2218) and continued with Abergavenny (Locobase 10106). They proved "second to none" in performance compared to engines of similar size and weight. Maskelyne said that they "always did consistently good work, and were usually employed on the Portsmouth lines until about 1900."

The last locomotive, ironically named Stephenson, ran until summer 1913 on the 90-minute Eastbourne-bound Pullman express behind her original boiler. "This speaks volumes," said Maskelyne, "for the care and workmanship that Stroudley put into his engines."

Class Grosvenor/B (Locobase 2218)

Data from Ahrons (1927). See also J N Maskelyne, "The Express Locomotives of the London, Brighton and South Coast , Locomotive News and Railway Notes, Volume I [1], No. 1 (10 March 1919), p. 3.

Steam ports were 15" x 1 1/2", exhaust ports 2" in diameter. Valve travel in full gear measured 4" with an outside lap of 7/8", no inside lap, and a 1/2" lead. At the Newark brake trials in 1875, this engine achieved 54.5 mph with a train load (including engine and tender) of 203.55 tons..

This was William Stroudley's first essay in the single-drivered express engine. J N Maskelyne commented on this "very fine locomotive", saying "It has always been something of a mystery to me why the 'Grosvenor' was not taken as the prototype of a class of similar engines, but ...she remained the one solitary member of her class."

In 1875, she was the first locomotive to run from Victoria Station in London to Portmouth on the coast in 110 minutes, going the 97 miles (156 km) without a stop.

The boiler was later rebuilt with a boiler containing 307 1 5/8" tubes (1,100 sq ft), which added almost 100 sq ft to the heating surface. It was later renumbered 326.

After more than 30 years on LB&SC service and 1,048,090 miles (1,687,425 km) traveled, she reportedly went to the Italian State Railways. Maskelyne was "inclined to doubt" that destination, thinking instead that "she accompanied a batch of Stroudley's large goods engines to work in Siberia." (Locobase pictures 81" drivers churning in an Arctic blizzard and is "inclined to doubt.")

Class Jenny Lind (Locobase 664)

Data from Mentioned and illustrated in David Joy's diary as reproduced on [] . Samuel Rendell (M. I Mech.E), "The Steam Locomotive: Fifty Years Ago and Now", read Saturday, 13 January 1906 and published in the Transactions of the Manchester Association of Engineers 1906 (January to March). See also "The Jenny Lind", Engineer, Volume 82, No 2 (10 January 2023), p. 25, archived on the D3D Diagram 3D website at []; and the Leeds Engine Builders website at last accessed 12 November 2023.

As is made evident by its low factor of adhesion, these were light express engines. Their leading and trailing trucks had bearings in the outer frame; the driving axle was mounted in the inner frame. Cylinders and Stephenson valve gear were both inside. These engines were developed by David Joy, but based on an earlier design by John Gray. Patrick Stirling extended the wheelbase of this design and built many for the Great Northern. (See 876 of the Great Northern.)

In the 1896 account, the contributor firmly establishes the Jenny Lind's place in the steam locomotive pantheon:

"It was the first high-speed, really economical engine, the economby being due to excellence of worksmanship and good proportion of parts; but mainly, no doubt, to the then excessive pressure carried in the boiler." (As recorded below, Joy fully credited 'Jimmy" Fenton with pushing the state of the art in constructing the boiler."

In sum, "The Jenny Lind constituted a remarkable advance on what had gone before it, and held its own for years to come with what followed it," the 1896 account claimed. It goes on to detail trials between this Jenny Lind and the Midland's "Jenny Sharpe" (Locobase 5591. .

From the website [] (23 June 2003), which reproduces David Joy's diary, we have the following comment: "Of course, it was the steam pressure that did it. But who was to blame, or to credit, for this lift of pressure from 80 or 90 to 120 lbs ? I have no note, but doubt not it was Jimmy Fenton. Thus this engine came out a mixture of the good points of the Gray, as first designed by Gray himself for the Brighton Railway, and the engine that had come of the long boiler, with its inside frame ; from this type it got the elastic plate frame, for leading and trailing wheels, but not rigid as in Gray's design. So these engines, at high speeds, always rolled softly, and did not jump and kick at a curve. Another thing which I think came of my fancy was a very free exhaust. I always, from the first, saw the blast port cores made, and with my own hands passed over them, had them passed over, to get a free passage."

The website also comments: "In the Illustrated Interview with Mr. Archibald Sturrock, which appeared in the RAlLWAY MAGAZINE for August, 1907, Mr. Sturrock claimed that it was higher steam pressure that made his locomotives successful, and Joy ascribes the success of the "Jenny Lind" to the same cause"