GWR River Class
The 69 Class designed by William Dean for the Great Western Railway consisted of eight 2-4-0 tender locomotives, constructed at Swindon Works in 1895-7. Nominally they were renewals of eight engines of the 2-2-2 wheel arrangement that carried the same numbers, these themselves having been renewals by George Armstrong at Wolverhampton of 2-2-2s designed by Daniel Gooch as long ago as 1855.
In truth the Dean engines were in effect new engines, the only re-used parts being some recently fitted boilers of Swindon pattern. They had 6 ft 8 in (2.032 m) driving wheels and 17 in × 24 in (432 mm × 610 mm) cylinders. 2-4-0s, being mixed-traffic engines, were not usually named on the GWR, but all of the 69s did carry names, as follows:
- 69 Avon
- 70 Dart
- 71 Dee
- 72 Exe
- 73 Isis
- 74 Stour
- 75 Teign
- 76 Wye
The "Rivers" were originally allocated to Oxford, and later moved to the Bristol division. They were not long-lived as 2-4-0s, the last being withdrawn in 1918.[1]
References
- Tabor 1956, pp. D43-D44.
Sources
- F. J. Tabor (1956), Locomotives of the Great Western Railway, part four: Six-coupled Tender Engines, RCTS