Locomotive Class

Class L1

Class: Class L1
Type: Steam
Designer: Richard Maunsell
Weight: 58 tons
Purpose: Express Passenger

Information: The Class L1 was introduced in 1926 for hauling increasingly heavy London to Folkstone express passenger boat train services. Although the locomotives were all new builds, they were in-fact a development of an earlier Wainwright Class L 4-4-0 design.

Details: The original inside two cylinder Class L design was drawn-up by Harry Wainwright in the early twentieth century, during which time emphasis was placed on building D and E Class locomotives. By 1926, Richard Maunsell had taken over as Chief Mechanical Engineer on the Southern Railway and was naturally tasked with providing a series of more powerful steam locomotives to haul the increasingly heavy trains of the period.
As needs were immediate; rather than starting a completely new design, plans for the Wainwright L class were revamped and resulted in 15 new build locomotives being constructed at the North British Locomotive Works in Glasgow.
By the 1930’s the class was already being superseded by the most powerful and last 4-4-0 design built in Britain; the Schools Class. However, the useful L1 Class was put to good use on other cross country services on Southern metals.
Through-out their lives, the Class were painted in express passenger liveries representing the operating companies policy of the period.
All class members were acquired by British Railways in 1948. However, with the demise of steam looming the aging locomotives were made redundant with-out much ado. Withdrawals commenced in 1959 and by 1962 all were gone.

John Faulkner