Steam Locomotives of a Leisurely Era – by Casey Jones
The London, Brighton & South Coast Railway
E1 0-6-0T
In1874 there appeared from Brighton Works the first of Mr. Stroudley’s standard goods tank engines, No.97.
The class was a six coupled version of the D1 0-4-2T and the boilers, motion and cylinders of the two types were interchangeable.
Number 97 was followed by numbers 98/9 in the same year, 100-2 in 1875, 103-8 in 1876, 109-120 in 1877, 121-138 in 1878, 139-144 in 1879, 145-152 in 1880, 153-156 in 1881, 85-96 in 1883, 157 in 1884, 159-164 in 1891, making a total of 79 locos.
Dimensions were:
Cyls 17 x 24 ins. DWH 4’ 6” THS 943 sq ft Grate 15½ sq ft Pr 170 lbs/sq in
Wt 4Tons 3cwt.
No.110 before restoration, at Hednesford ‘Cannock Wood’ No.9
In typical Stroudley tradition the whole class was named, rather a strange assortment of French towns and villages being chosen, together with other continental places and a few English as well.
As the standard goods shunting tank, the class was spread all over the system, doing extremely useful work. In fact the class was so robust that Stroudley’s successors did not bother to design a replacement. Mr. Billington did produce his E2s in 1913 to replace earlier E1s which had been withdrawn but the new development only numbered ten locos.
In 1911 Mr. Marsh the CME rebuilt No.89 with a new boiler 4’ 6” in diameter, she was the only one so treated and later when this boiler wore out she reverted to he original style.
Quite a few were taken out of traffic in LBSCR days but the majority were taken over by the Southern Railway who added 2000 to the original numbers.
In 1932-3 four of the class were transferred to the Isle of Wight and details of these are:
No.2136 Brindisi W1 Medina
No.2152 Hungary W2 Yarmouth
No.2154 Madrid W3 Ryde
No.2131 Gournay W4 Wroxall
Wroxall
Incidentally the LBSCR renumbered certain of the class as follows before the SR added the 2000 to the numbers.
Nos. 85-91 to 685-91, No.99 to 610, Nos. 100-5 to 692-7,
Nos. 106-9 to 606-9, No.111 to 611
Further withdrawals took place in early Southern Railway days and in 1927-8 ten of the survivors were rebuilt at Brighton to the specifications of Mr. Mansell as
0-6-2Ts for service in the West of England on the newly opened line between Halwill Junction and Torrington. These rebuilds were classified E1/R and those so treated were numbers 2094-6, 2124/35, 2608/10, 2695-7. As originally built these were found to be unsteady on passenger service but this was soon eradicated by Mr. Bulleid who rebalanced numbers 2094-6, 2608/10. These together with number 2696 spent most of their lives at Barnstaple depot, the other four being at Exeter for banking duties up the steep gradient between Exeter Central and Exeter St. David’s.
Reverting back to the E1s proper most had their names removed before passing into Southern hands, and as already remarked the survivors continued to put in useful work at various shunting yards. Several were sold on withdrawal and these included number 2163 sold to Ashington Colliery in 1932, number 146 sold in 1908 and number 2110 ‘Burgundy’ sold to Cannock Wood Colliery, Staffs in 1927 and renamed Cannock Wood. This latter is now the only surviving member, albeit in slightly modified form and is at present housed at Hednesford Depot of the RPS (1968). A fund is at present open towards the cost of purchase and restoration to full working order of this locomotive, and I can do no other than to commend this fund to our readers – after all plenty of passenger types are being saved but not the traditional British 0-6-0 shunting locomotive of which old number 110 is a worthy representative.
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