LB&SCR D1 class

Infobox Locomotive
name=London Brighton and South Coast Railway Class D1
powertype=Steam
whytetype=0-4-2
firstrundate=1873
driversize=5 ft 6 in
length=
weight=43 tons 10 cwt
cylindercount=2
cylindersize=17 in x 24 in
boilerpressure=170 lb/in²
tractiveeffort=15,185 lbs
railroad=London Brighton and South Coast Railway, Southern Railway (Great Britain), Southern Region of British Railways
locale=Great Britain
railroadclass=
The LB&SCR D1 class, powerful 0-4-2 suburban passenger tank locomotives, were designed by William Stroudley of the London Brighton and South Coast Railway in 1873. The were originally known as "D-tanks" but later reclassified at class D1.

Pre-Grouping

They 125 locomotives in this very successful class were built at Brighton railway works and appeared in traffic between November 1873 and March 1887. For twenty years they were the mainstay of the LB&SCR outer suburban services, until gradually replaced by R.J. Billinton's D3 class 0-4-4 tank engines in the mid 1890s. The first locomotive was withdrawn in December 1903, but many of the locomotives were still in good condition and popular with the engine crews. Douglas Earle Marsh therefore sought to rebuild six examples in 1910 with a larger boiler and cylinders. These locomotives were known as D1X class, but although they were more powerful than the originals, were unsteady at speed and so no further rebuilds were authorised

Post-grouping

There were 84 D1 and D1X locomotives surviving in December 1922 at the grouping of the railways of southern England to form the Southern Railway. The class continued to find useful work on secondary services throughout the new railway, often in preference to far newer locomotives. During the Second World War six surviving examples were loaned to the London Midland and Scottish Railway and served in the north of Scotland.

British Railways

Seventeen members of the class survived the nationalisation of the Southern Railway to form British Railways in January 1948 but many of these had been in storage for several years. The last surviving example in B.R. service was withdrawn from Nine Elms in December 1951 and no examples have been preserved.

Private ownership

In 1947 the Whittingham Hospital Railway in Lancashire acquired number 2357 from the Southern Railway at a cost of £750. It was renamed "James Fryers" in honour of the Chairman of the Hospital Management Committee. Serious boiler defects in 1956 curtailed its working career and the engine was scrapped that year when it proved beyond economic repair. At that time, it was the sole surviving member of its class (Casserley, 1957: p. 313).

ources

*Bradley, D.L. (1972) "The locomotives of the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway: Part 2", The Railway Correspondence and Travel Society, ISBN 0-901115-21-5
*Casserley, H.C. (1957) "The Whittingham Railway", "Railway Magazine", 103 (May), p. 312–313 & 320
*Worsfold, B.G. (1954) [http://www.semgonline.com/RlyMag/TheStroudleyDTanks.pdf "The Stroudley "D" Tanks"] , "Railway Magazine", 100 (February), p. 92–96

External links

* [http://www.railuk.info/steam/getsteamclass.php?item=D1M Rail UK database entry]