The BR Standard Class 3 2-6-0 was a class of mixed traffic

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...

Robert Riddles Robert Arthur "Robin" Riddles, CBE, MIMechE, MinstLE (23 May 1892 – 18 June 1983) was a British locomotive design engineer. Biography LNWR and LMS Riddles was born in 1892 in East Preston in Worthing, Sussex. His father was a contractors' man ...

for

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commis ...

. It was essentially a hybrid design, the chassis being closely based on and sharing a number of parts with the

LMS Ivatt Class 4 The LMS Ivatt Class 4 2-6-0 is a class of steam locomotive primarily designed for medium freight work but also widely used on secondary passenger services. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) ordered 162 of this type between 1947 and ...

, and having a boiler derived from a GWR No.2 boiler as fitted to the GWR Large Prairie 2-6-2T and 5600 Class 0-6-2T tank engines.

Design details

The design and construction took place at the ex-Great Western Railway

Swindon Works Swindon Works was opened by the Great Western Railway in 1843 in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It served as the principal west England maintenance centre until closed in 1986. History In 1835, Parliament approved the construction of the Great ...

, along with the 2-6-2 tank engine version of the class, though some details were designed at Brighton, Derby and Doncaster. Although the boiler shared flanged plates with the GWR No.2 boiler the barrel was shortened by inches and a dome added. Strangely the class did not share the same design of wheels as the

Doncaster Doncaster ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, Yorkshire, River Don, it is the administrative centre of the City of Doncaster metropolitan borough, and is the second largest se ...

-designed BR Standard Class 4 2-6-0, however both shared the driving wheels and the same piston stroke, and hence crank-pin throw. In common with a number of the other BR Standard Classes, the chassis design used a number of LMS-designed components including Brake Hanger Brackets, Flexible Stretcher Brackets and Reversing Shaft Brackets. The cylinder covers of engines as built were fitted with "screw-in" type pressure relief valves. From September 1955 revised cylinder covers were introduced for renewals incorporating "bolt-on" type pressure relief valves. Although the chassis had many almost identical parts to the LMS Ivatt Class 4 the motion brackets were derived from the design of those fitted to the

LMS Ivatt Class 2 2-6-0 The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) Ivatt Class 2 2-6-0 is a class of steam locomotive designed for light mixed traffic. Design Elderly 0-6-0s formed the backbone of the low-powered locomotives within the LMS fleet. William Stanier ...

and

LMS Ivatt Class 2 2-6-2T The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) Ivatt Class 2 2-6-2T is a class of light 'mixed-traffic' steam locomotive introduced in 1946. Background The LMS had various elderly tank engines and the operating department required a new sma ...

. Unlike a number of the larger BR Standards the exhaust steam manifold within the smokebox saddle was a steel fabrication that was part of the welded saddle. In a number of the large BR standards (BR Standard Class 6 and Class 7 engines) the exhaust steam manifold was a steel casting welded into the saddle during manufacture.

Service

Only 20 were built, numbers 77000–77019, all at

. None were preserved, though some components were saved from scrapyards for use on a project to build a new Standard Class 3

2-6-2T T, or t, is the twentieth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is d ...

. They were the last steam locomotive class on British Railways to begin withdrawal.

Operation

Their operations were mainly restricted to the

North Eastern The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A '' compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—eac ...

and

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

Regions of British Railways, although 77014 ended service on the Southern Region as it was transferred from Northwich depot on the London Midland Region to Guildford depot on the Southern Region in March 1966; it was withdrawn in July 1967. Other operations were in some more remote areas, such as 77011 which worked the Haltwhistle - Alston line from 1955.

Withdrawal

References

Citations

References

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Bibliography

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External links

Class BR3/1 Details
at ''Rail UK''
BR Standard Class 3MT 2-6-0 (SEMG article)
{{BRstds 3 2-6-0 locomotives 1′C h2 locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1954 Scrapped locomotives Standard-gauge steam locomotives of Great Britain