War Department 2-8-0 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class 8F (Locobase 1301)

Data from The Stanier 8F Locomotive Society Limited website at [], last accessed 16 October 2022; and "LMS Stanier 8F steam locomotives - Class Information, Updated Monday, 13 January, 2020 by [] on the RailPage website at [], last accessed 16 October 2022. North British Locomotive Company works numbers were 24600-24659 in 1940; 24668-24743 in 1941; 24746, 24749, 24806, 24809 in 1942. Beyer, Peacock works numbers were 6980-7004 in 1940-1941; 7005-7019, 7034-7043 in 1942.

The Stanier 8F design that entered service with London, Midland and Scottish Railroad in 1935 (Locobase 3115) was adopted as the standard goods locomotive for the British Armed Forces as the beginning of World War II. RailPage noted that few significant modifications proved necessary other than "reducing the number of specialised metals to fitting equipment to run over other nations tracks."

The engine was built in large numbers by North British Locomotive Company. (Others were supplied by LMS).

They became a familiar sight in many parts of the world. After the war, many wound up in Turkey, where they became known as the Churchills.

See [], the Great Central Railway website.

Class Austerity (Locobase 6307)

Data from LM&SR's Derby Worksdiagram reproduced on the excellent [] (first accessed 17 December 2004, last accessed 28 August 2017). See alo Richard Marsden's LNER Encyclopedia ([] ...); Gustav Reder, The World of Steam Locomotives, (1974, pl 411(b)); Steve Allen's article on the WD engines as published in North Norfolk Railway's Joint Lines (the NNR membership's quarterly publication) and reproduced on the NNR's website [] (accessed 1 March 2006); and steamindex's detailed summary of Rogers, H.C.B. Last steam locomotive engineer: R.A. Riddles, C.B.E. 1970. on the design. .(Thanks to Locobase partner Wes Barris ([]) for his 14 June 2017 email reporting the mispelling of the "Wat" Department.).

A partial list of the two builders' output of Austerities shows North British Locomotive Company contributed the following: 24891-24970, 25171-25320 in 1943, 25350-25370 in 1944 at Queen's Park; 24971-25170 in 1943; other NBLC works numbers were 25371-25435 in 1944. Vulcan produced 4966-4980 in 1943, 4981-5186 in 1944, and 5187-5255 in 1945.

Reder shows different values for the heating surfaces. He gives 171.68 sq m/1,847.3 sq ft for the evaporative heating surface, 28.89 sq m/310.9 sq ft for the superheater.]

These were designed by Robert A Riddles to provide quickly a fleet of freight locomotives with a tonnage rating of 1,000 tons on the level at 40 mph. Even an Austerity design was superheated and relatively capacious 10" (254 mm) piston valves supplied steam to the cylinders.

And they had to be relatively cheap and relatively easy to build. Cutting out steel castings reduced frame weight, the parallel boiler and round-top firebox were simple to manufacture, a relatively simple Laird crosshead was deemed enough. That the goal was a two-year working life indicates time's pressure trumping practically every other element.

Still, the maturity and skill in building steam locomotives stood the two private companines in good stead and their product was quite serviceable. Rogers' biography of Riddles, as reported by steamindex, gives us the designer's quite sensible perspective on the whole process:

"Riddles never approved of undue emphasis on thermal efficiency. The basis of his engines was a boiler which would meet all the demands made of it. He says, 'Whether or not they would burn a pound or two more a mile than a more sophisticated engine, I regarded as the unrealistic preoccupation of the theorist, because in practice a good driver and fireman could save pounds if given a free-steaming engine.' "

As the pre-Normandy landing gained speed, Austerities went out to the LNER (350), 50 on the LMS, and 50 on the Southern.

At the end of the war, most of the locomotives returned to the British Isles. LNER bought 200 in 1946 as their class O7, road numbers 3000-3199. Their crews found them rough-riding, producing clanks and bangs as they moved about and earning them the nickname "Bed Irons". Those engines and 533 more entered onto the British Railways roster under the 1948 Nationalization of the railway system.

The Dutch operated many of these as their NS 4300 II class and nicknamed them "Jeeps" or "Dakotas". The last of them was withdrawn in 1958.

Class IV (Locobase 20688)

Data from Egyptian State Railways diagram G4, dated 2 December 1943, found on Flick. North British Locomotive Company and Beyer Peacock delivered the class in 1939-1940.

Essentially a batch of War Department 2-8-0s based on Stanier's design (Locobase 1301) , the 43 delivered by North British and Beyer Peacock in 1939-1940 had the same boiler and Belpaire firebox nevertheless showed differences Perhaps the biggest was the installation of an oil-burner. .Cylinder stroke was extended by 1/2" (12.7 mm), the superheater area increased slightly.

Locomotive smoke betraying the presence of these steam engines proved a problem in the desert and they were soon phased out in favor of diesels. It was then that forty of the class was sold to the ESR.