London & North Western 4-4-2 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class Precursor Tank / 3P (Locobase 2197)

Data from "Railway Notes - London & North Western Ry", The Locomotive Magazine, Vol XII (15 August 1906), p. 128. See also Steamindex's summary of the class at [], last accessed 24 June 2009.

Hefty George Whale inside-cylinder tank engine design for the London and North Western that added another axle under the Precursor boiler (Locobase 2191) and combined the tender in a rigid frame. They were designed to handle heavy traffic on branch lines. A curious defect of Whale's designs apparently was his placement of the leading sandbox. According to Steamindex, "...he leading sandbox is the type that was near-impossible to fill, inside and beneath the frames, behind the leading brake hanger. To make things easier, the filler opening was brought outside the frames to the right of the upper footstep."

The last engine was retired in 1940, possibly because the wheel arrangement wasn't satisfactory and the boilers needed replacement. Or, as Steamindex reports, "The 4-4-2Ts were rough, sluggish and difficult to fire." Or, more succinctly, "good riddance."