List of British Railways steam locomotives as of 31 December 1967. The following is a list of

British Railways steam locomotives The steam locomotives of British Railways were used by British Railways over the period 1948–1968. The vast majority of these were inherited from its four constituent companies, the " Big Four". In addition, BR built 2,537 steam locomotives in ...

as of the end of 1967. With main line steam ending in August 1968, these are the ones that survived to the last year. By this stage, steam locomotive stock had been severely reduced from over 20,000 locomotives at nationalisation to fewer than 370.

Locomotive classes

Of the remaining 359 standard gauge steam locomotives, all were robust, two-cylinder tender engines to seven classes. The vast majority were to two ex-LMS classes designed by

William Stanier Sir William Arthur Stanier, (27 May 1876 – 27 September 1965) was a British railway engineer, and was chief mechanical engineer of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. Biography Sir William Stanier was born in Swindon, where h ...

; 151 ex-LMS Black Fives and 150 ex-LMS 8Fs. The remaining 58 were an assortment of four

BR standard classes The BR Standard steam locomotives were an effort to standardize locomotives from the motley collection of older pre-grouping locos. Construction started in 1951. Due to the controversial British Railways' modernisation plan of 1955, where steam t ...

and one other ex-LMS class. All were based on the

London Midland Region The London Midland Region (LMR) was one of the six regions created on the formation of the nationalised British Railways (BR), and initially consisted of ex-London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) lines in England, Wales and Northern Irelan ...

. They were employed mostly on freight workings in industrial

North-West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...

. Main line steam would end with the

Fifteen Guinea Special The ''Fifteen Guinea Special'' was the last main-line passenger train to be hauled by steam locomotive power on British Rail on 11 August 1968 before the introduction of a steam ban that started the following day, the extra day added to allow fo ...

on 11 August 1968.

Capital stock

Departmental stock

Departmental stock was numbered in a different series to the capital stock. {, class="wikitable" , + Departmental Stock List !Departmental Nos !! Class !! No. in
class !! Power
Class !! Wheel
arr. !!Notes , - , 30–32 , , ex-

LNER Thompson Class B1 The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) Thompson Class B1 is a class of steam locomotive designed by Edward Thompson for medium mixed traffic work. Overview It was the LNER's equivalent to the highly successful GWR Hall Class and t ...

, , 3 , , Unclassified (previously 5MT) , , 4-6-0 , , Carriage heaters

Post-1967 survivals

The locomotives of the Vale of Rheidol Railway, narrow gauge, acquired from the GWR but which had been transferred to the

survived the end of main line steam, remaining in BR stock until 1989 when the VoR was privatised and preserved. There were also three ex-

s in departmental stock used as carriage heaters on the Eastern Region. These latter engines had their couplings removed so they could not haul

train In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often ...

s, though they could still propel themselves. These were withdrawn in 1968.

References

* Pat Rowledge ''Locomotives of the LMS built 1923-1951'' * Hugh Longworth ''British Railway'' (sic) ''Steam Locomotives 1948-68'' British Railways Steam Locomotives As Of 31 December 1967