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Comment by adrian vaughan on August 7, 2010 at 21:20

Hello Dick,
I'm not at all good at manipulating Steamtube.
Now - this HAS been rebuilt! There were originally 88 of them starting in 1883 as South Eastern Railway 'F' class. Designed by Partick Stirling with his GNR style round roofed cab, domeless boiler and 7' driving wheels. 76 of them were rebuilt under Mr.Wainwright and were known as 'F1' and that is what you see here. Only 8 survived into BR and the last was scrapped in 1949 and that was the only one to have a BR number - 31151. I do recall them for their 'Nelly-engine' looks and the springs above the footplating on the tender. There were also running on the SR out of Reading when I was small, the old SER 'B' class 4-4-0 which were an enlarged F1 domeless boilers. 29 were built. 27 of them later received Wainwright cab and domed boilers and had tenders with the springs below the footplating. So then they were class B1.16 survived into BR but only one - 31446 - ever carried a BR number. The B1s were also regular into Reading Southern. The last one - went in 1951.
The Reading line had some of the Wainwright 'D' class 4-4-0 designed in 1921 and I recall them but the D1 and E1 I don't recall. That's is not to say they diodn't come in but infrequently if they did. The Maulsel 2-60 were in place of the older 4-4-0 for the most part. I was never any good at knowing a 'U' from an 'N' in 1951 so beyond knowing that we had lots of those 2-6-0 I would like to say what type.

Comment by Dick Bodily on August 7, 2010 at 18:51

Adrian
I think this should have been in Steamtube, but I know why you posted it. Thanks, its a lovely picture. Was this particular type one of the series rebuilt later by Maunsell as D1 or E1, etc? I agree it was more impresive than teh sort of motive power in use when I knew the line.
Dick