johnchisem
Mr Grumpy
Following a comment on another post I realised that some people may not know how British locomotives are numbered. The following is meant as a guide and may contain small mistakes, feel free to correct or add details.
Steam locos were originally allocated names only. As the companies grew in size it became more convenient to use a number also. There does not seem to have been much logic to the actual numbers allocated. This did not cause too many problems until the 120+ small companies were grouped into the "Big Four" (LMS, GWR, SR, LNER) in 1923, this caused much duplication of numbers within a single companies' locos. Quite a lot of renumbering had to be done, but still with little logic.
One exception was the GWR which mainly used a 4 digit number in which the first 2 digits were the class, so a Hall loco was known as a 49xx. A King would be 60xx. The halls filled all the 49xx series up to 4999, but 5000 was a Castle class, so Halls went to the 59xx series. (Some oil burning Halls were numbered into 39xx)
When the Big Four were nationalised in 1948 even more duplication occurred so a major re-numbering occurred. GWR locos had cast number plates so they were left alone. SR locos had 30000 added, LMS 40000 (or 50000) and LNER had 60000 added. When the BR Standard locos were built tender locos were numbered 7xxxx and tank locos 80xxx and 9fs were 92xxx.
John
Steam locos were originally allocated names only. As the companies grew in size it became more convenient to use a number also. There does not seem to have been much logic to the actual numbers allocated. This did not cause too many problems until the 120+ small companies were grouped into the "Big Four" (LMS, GWR, SR, LNER) in 1923, this caused much duplication of numbers within a single companies' locos. Quite a lot of renumbering had to be done, but still with little logic.
One exception was the GWR which mainly used a 4 digit number in which the first 2 digits were the class, so a Hall loco was known as a 49xx. A King would be 60xx. The halls filled all the 49xx series up to 4999, but 5000 was a Castle class, so Halls went to the 59xx series. (Some oil burning Halls were numbered into 39xx)
When the Big Four were nationalised in 1948 even more duplication occurred so a major re-numbering occurred. GWR locos had cast number plates so they were left alone. SR locos had 30000 added, LMS 40000 (or 50000) and LNER had 60000 added. When the BR Standard locos were built tender locos were numbered 7xxxx and tank locos 80xxx and 9fs were 92xxx.
John