The

Port Talbot Railway The Port Talbot Railway and Docks Company (PTR&D) was formed in 1894 to secure the means of bringing minerals, chiefly coal, to the harbour in South Wales. It took over the docks at Port Talbot that had been operated by the Port Talbot Company. ...

Stephenson Class were eleven 0-6-2T locomotives introduced into traffic in 1898 designed and built by

Robert Stephenson and Company Robert Stephenson and Company was a locomotive manufacturing company founded in 1823 in Forth Street, Newcastle upon Tyne in England. It was the first company in the world created specifically to build railway engines. Famous early locomoti ...

. They predated the somewhat similar but larger

Rhymney Railway M class The Rhymney Railway M class was a class of 0-6-2T tank locomotive introduced into traffic on the Rhymney Railway in 1904. These were substantial sized tank engines, and weighed ( after rebuilding) and were in length. There were six locos i ...

by six years. They were successful designs ideally suited to hauling coal trains a relatively short distance. Four of the class were nevertheless quickly sold, two to the

Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway The Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway was a Welsh railway company formed to connect the upper end of the Rhondda Fawr with Swansea, with the chief objective of transporting coal and other minerals to Swansea docks. It was incorporated in 1882, but ...

in 1901, and two more to the

Neath and Brecon Railway The Dulas Valley Mineral Railway was incorporated in 1862 to bring coal from the Onllwyn area north-east of Neath to the quays there, and in the following year was reconstituted as the Neath and Brecon Railway. The line was opened as far as Onllw ...

in 1903. This left seven to be absorbed into 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 ...

(GWR) in 1922. In 1925, two were rebuilt with the then newly developed number 10 standard boiler and high domed cab by the GWR. In this form they were visually similar to a smaller version of the

GWR 5600 Class The GWR 5600 Class is a class of 0-6-2T steam locomotive built between 1924 and 1928. They were designed by Charles Collett for the Great Western Railway (GWR), and were introduced into traffic in 1924. After the 1923 grouping, Swindon inherit ...

introduced in 1924.

Welsh 0-6-2T types

The numerous railways of

South Wales South Wales ( cy, De Cymru) is a loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, south Wales extends westwards ...

had one thing in common apart from transporting

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

in large quantities; their liking for the 0-6-2T type. The first was in 1885 on the

Taff Vale Railway The Taff Vale Railway (TVR) was a standard gauge railway in South Wales, built by the Taff Vale Railway Company to serve the iron and coal industries around Merthyr Tydfil and to connect them with docks in Cardiff. It was opened in stag ...

the design being by their mechanical engineer

Tom Hurry Riches Tom Hurry Riches (1846–1911) was a British engineer who became the Locomotive Superintendent of the Taff Vale Railway in October 1873, and held the post until his death. At the time of his appointment, he was the youngest locomotive superinte ...

, father of Charles T. Hurry Riches who was the designer of the Rhymney Stephensons. The suitability of the type was because the nature of the work they undertook demanded high adhesive weight, plenty of power with good braking ability, but no need for outright speed, nor large tanks or bunker as the distances from pit to port were short. These Welsh locomotives were taken over by the GWR at the grouping in 1923 and many, including seventeen of the Rhymney A, M, P and R's, were rebuilt with GWR

taper boiler A fire-tube boiler is a type of boiler in which hot gases pass from a fire through one or more tubes running through a sealed container of water. The heat of the gases is transferred through the walls of the tubes by thermal conduction, heating t ...

s. All the Rhymney Stephenson-derived locos passed into

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

(BR) ownership in 1948. Others included (with some gaps in numbering): * Brecon and Merthyr Railway, BR numbers 431-436 * Cardiff Railway, BR number 155 * Rhymney Railway, BR numbers 35-83 * Taff Vale Railway, BR numbers 204-399 For further information on these pre-grouping locomotives see

Locomotives of the Great Western Railway The first Locomotives of the Great Western Railway (GWR) were specified by Isambard Kingdom Brunel but Daniel Gooch was soon appointed as the railway's Locomotive Superintendent. He designed several different broad gauge types for the growing r ...

External links

Telford Steam Railway 5619 project 5643 6695
{{GWR absorbed locos 1922 on Port Talbot Railway and Docks Company locomotives 0-6-2T locomotives Robert Stephenson and Company locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1898 Scrapped locomotives Standard gauge steam locomotives of Great Britain Freight locomotives

Welsh 0-6-2T types

See also

External links