War Department Railway Operating Division 2-8-0 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class 1401 (Locobase 14590)

Data from DeGolyer, Vol 57, pp. 180+. Works numbers were 45610-45619 in May 1917, 45727-45746 in June, 45902-45914 in July, 46017-46023 in August, 46472-46484 in September; 46554-46566, 46640-46649, 46717-46720, 46747-46751, 46787-46795 in October; 46862-46874, 46931-46940, 47034-47047, 47106-47108 in November, 47207-47212 in December

This was the standard 2-8-0 built during World War One for service in many countries. Unlike the French versions shown in Locobases 13381, 13383-13388, however, this class was delivered with saturated boilers. Piston valves measured 10" (254 mm ) in diameter.

Eighty-eight were inducted into the French Nord system as 4.1589-1622, 1551-1588, 1623-1643 after World War One. A few were later scrapped, the rest were redesignated 140B by SNCF when that national system formed in 1938.

Class Military Mary / O4 (Locobase 2742)

Data from "Consolidated Locomotives for Overseas Military Railways", Locomotive Magazine, Volume 23, No 304 (15 December 1917). See also the long account "O4 63570 - 63920 2-8-0 GCR & ROD Robinson" on the Preserved British Steam Locomotives website at [], last accessed 19 July 2019.

These were JG Robinson two-cylinder (outside) Consolidations with Belpaire fireboxes that proved successful enough for the War Department to adopt as its standard model on its Railway Operating Division (ROD).

Kitson produced 32 in 1918

Nasmyth Wilson manufactured 32 in 1917-1919

North British built 369 in 1917-1919

Robert Stephenson & Co turned out 82.

After World War I, the LNER obtained 273 of these engines for freight working. Ahrons (1927). See also the GCR 8M 2-8-0 entry in Locobase 2347 . See [] (10 May 2003 -- the website of the London & North Western Railway Society's Goods Locomotives "exhibit". That site (whose punstaking head is Webb Master Christopher Hill) notes that L&NWR drivers gave the nickname to their 30 ex-ROD locomotives.

Richard HN Hardy (see Locobase 2314 for a discussion of this photographer and his extensive collection of LNER images; see [], accessed 8 May 2006) lists this class -- what he also calls the ROD -- as among the most praiseworthy in his caption RH155, listing a range of virtues for "the finest heavy freight locomotive to run on our [sic] railways and one that won both wars. The ROD was prime because it was cheap to build, required little maintenance, and was indestructible. It did not slip, the steam brake was strong with low steam pressure, it steamed, it was warm and comfortable with everything to hand, easy to oil, easy on coal, the perfect heavy freight engine." Or, as he said simply in RH297: "...the simplest, most rugged and reliable heavy freight locomotive ever created in this country."