The

London, Midland and Scottish Railway The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMSIt has been argued that the initials LMSR should be used to be consistent with LNER, GWR and SR. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway's corporate image used LMS, and this is what is generally ...

(LMS) Fowler Dock Tank was an

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, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the loco ...

. Designed for shunting in

dock A dock (from Dutch ''dok'') is the area of water between or next to one or a group of human-made structures that are involved in the handling of boats or ships (usually on or near a shore) or such structures themselves. The exact meaning va ...

s, it had a short

wheelbase In both road and rail vehicles, the wheelbase is the horizontal distance between the centers of the front and rear wheels. For road vehicles with more than two axles (e.g. some trucks), the wheelbase is the distance between the steering (front ...

in order for it to readily negotiate tight curves. The locomotives spent their entire lives painted in plain black.

History

The LMS were responsible for operating lines on a number of docks which, due to space constraints, contained curves considerably sharper than most other places, thus most dock tanks had only four coupled (i.e. driving) wheels in order to allow them to negotiate the tight curves.

Design

With the growth in freight a more powerful engine was required which resulted in this design by

Sir Henry Fowler Sir Henry Fowler, (29 July 1870 – 16 October 1938) was an English railway engineer, and was chief mechanical engineer of the Midland Railway and subsequently the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. Biography Fowler was born in Evesham, ...

for an locomotive with a wheelbase which, aided by the use of Cartazzi self-centring axleboxes on the rear axle, allowed the loco to negotiate curves of 2½ chains.

Construction

Ten of these simple sturdy locomotives were built on Lot 61 in 1928 and 1929 by

Derby Works The Derby Works comprised a number of British manufacturing facilities designing and building locomotives and rolling stock in Derby, England. The first of these was a group of three maintenance sheds opened around 1840 behind Derby station. Th ...

although, unusually for dock tanks they incorporated outside cylinders, these normally being considered too dangerous in an area where people were working close to the rapidly moving rods. Other than this they were typical of most dock tanks with simple slide valves and oval buffers.

Numbering

They were initially numbered 11270–11279, renumbered under the

LMS 1933 renumbering scheme A number of different numbering and classification schemes were used for the locomotives owned by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and its constituent companies; this page explains the principal systems that were used. The followi ...

to 7100–7109, and renumbered again in 1939 to 7160–7169. Despite their small quantity, the LMS considered them standard locomotives. After nationalisation in 1948, BR added 40000 to their numbers making them 47160–47169, and allocated 5 of the 10 to Scottish depots, where they operated on branch lines as well as docks.

Withdrawal

Withdrawals took place between 1959 and 1964 with none surviving into preservation.

References

* {{LMS Locomotives 0-6-0T locomotives 2 Fowler Dock Tank Railway locomotives introduced in 1928 Scrapped locomotives Standard gauge steam locomotives of Great Britain Shunting locomotives