The humble 0-6-0s UNSUNG HEROES OF THE WORLD OF STEAM
THEY were such an omnipresent part of the scenery that we hardly gave them a passing glance – but where would the railways have been without the unassuming 0-6-0 tank and tender engines that once teemed as they went about their mundane tasks of hauling pick-up goods trains and local passenger services, shunting in yards large and small, acting as bankers or bringing empty stock into stations before giving the departing trains a useful shove out?
When British Railways was formed on January 1, 1948, well over 100 classes of 0-6-0 tank and tender locomotives, many dating from the Victorian era, were in operation all over the country. Indeed, the very last one to be built for our main line system, a Great Western-designed inside-cylinder 9400 class pannier tank, wasn’t completed until 1956!
From the tiny former London Brighton & South Coast Railway A1 and A1X ‘Terrier’ tank engines designed under William Stroudley, to the former North Eastern Railway J72 tanks designed under William Worsdell (the first built by the North Eastern Railway in 1898 and the last under British Railways
