The

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

Leo Class was a class of

broad gauge A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways. Broad gauge of , commonly known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union (CIS ...

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 locomot ...

s for goods train work. This class was introduced into service between January 1841 and July 1842, and withdrawn between September 1864 and June 1874. These locomotives were the first for the railway with coupled wheels as they were designed as goods locomotives, but they later found use on passenger trains too. All the class were altered to s. The locomotives were built by three different workshops, each with its own naming convention. The first three came from R and W Hawthorn and Company, who named them after strong animals. The next three were named after

volcano A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are ...

es by

Fenton, Murray and Jackson Fenton, Murray and Jackson was an engineering company at the Round Foundry off Water Lane in Holbeck, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Fenton, Murray and Wood Fenton Murray and Wood was founded in the 1790s by ironfounder Matthew Murray and ...

, while the final twelve came from

Rothwell and Company Rothwell, Hick and Rothwell was an engineering company in Bolton, England. Set up in 1822, the partners became interested in the production of steam locomotives after the Rainhill Trials. The company's first engine was ''Union'', a vertical bo ...

carrying the names of the twelve houses of the

zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the Sun path, apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. ...

Locomotives

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gwr Leo Class Leo 2-4-0 locomotives Broad gauge (7 feet) railway locomotives Hawthorn locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1841 Scrapped locomotives