If you were "listing" UK steam locos, what's your opinion of the best order?

Red_Rattler

Since 09 May 2003
If you were "listing" UK steam locos, what's your opinion of the best order?

I know their is no right answer, more after opinions, especially comparing official & unofficial class names.

If you wanted to list (index) several classes of UK steam locos, what would be the best order in your opinion, would work the best?

Note: My list will be ignoring the rail company, such as GWR, unless need to.

For example:
King, (GWR 6000) Class
County, (GWR 1000) Class
Hall, (GWR 4900) Class

Would I be correct, in that their numerical number as above is the official terms for the classes, or are the groups names the official terms for the class?

Would you put them in say "alphabetical" order, or in numerical order using their class numbers, or would you put them in order of their official name, if they have a name, such as Flying Scotman?

With the A1, A2, A3 etc, including the Flying Scotsman, Tornado, are they collectively just known as the "A Class"?

Slightly off-topic: The streamlining of the A4's were removed during World War 2. Wouldn't doing so temporary make them a different "A" number?
 
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I know their is no right answer, more after opinions, especially comparing official & unofficial class names.

If you wanted to list (index) several classes of UK steam locos, what would be the best order in your opinion, would work the best?

Note: My list will be ignoring the rail company, such as GWR, unless need to.

For example:
King, (GWR 6000) Class
County, (GWR 1000) Class
Hall, (GWR 4900) Class

Would you put them in say "alphabetical" order, or in numerical order using their class numbers, or would you put them in order of their official name, if they have a name, such as Flying Scotman?

I would list them by BR power classification eg 8P were express locos and included such classes as A3s, Kings and Duchesses. Within the power classes you could then divide by wheel arrangement and wheteher it was a tank or tender loco.

Wikipedia said:
BR adopted a slightly modified version of the LMS classification system, itself based on the Midland Railway's system. Each locomotive class was given a number 0–9 that signified its power, 0 for the least powerful and 9 for the most, with a suffix of F or P, indicating freight and passenger roles respectively. Freight power ranged from 0–9, passenger from 0–8. Many locomotives were used for both roles, in which case they were given two class numbers, the P-rating first e.g. 3P4F or 6P5F. A slight change from the LMS system saw those where the freight classification (x) equalled the passenger classification (also x) reclassified as xMT, MT standing for mixed traffic, e.g. for the LMS Black Five locomotives, LMS 5P5F became BR 5MT. Mixed traffic locos had power in the range of classes 2–6.

With the A1, A2, A3 etc, including the Flying Scotsman, Tornado, are they collectively just known as an "A Class"?

Short answer: No.

In the LNER class system the letter refers to the wheel arrangement, so all As are 4-6-2, all Bs are 4-6-0 etc. Witihin each wheel arrangement there are obviously many classes that are completely different from each other.
 
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I would list them by BR power classification eg 8P were express locos and included such classes as A3s, Kings and Duchesses. Within the power classes you could then divide by wheel arrangement and wheteher it was a tank or tender loco.
I should have said, that's I don't really want to list tem via the power class.

In the LNER class system the letter refers to the wheel arrangement, so all As are 4-6-2, all Bs are 4-6-0 etc.
I know that the "A's" are all 4-6-2 or Pacific wheel arrangement, but I was ignoring the wheel arrangement as well.

I'm mostly looking for, would you put them in order of say class name, class number, or "name of locomotive"? That's what I should have said at first.

I forget to re-ask, the number is the actual official class name?
 
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I should have said, that's I don't really want to list tem via the power class.

I know that the "A's" are all 4-6-2 or Pacific wheel arrangement, but I was ignoring the wheel arrangement as well.

I'm mostly looking for, would you put them in order of say class name, class number, or "name of locomotive"? That's what I should have said at first.

I forget to re-ask, the number is the actual official class name?

If you don't split by company or power class your list will be almost meaningless. Each company used a completely different system to classify their locomotives. For example the LNER used the wheel arrangement system, the GWR a system based on the number of the first loco in the class and the SR a system based on the works lot number of the first loco. Also many classes were reused several times. I suggested the BR system because it's possible to slot every locomotive into it. Another possibility is to list by the designer of the locomotive, eg Gresley A3 or Maunsell S15.
 
Slightly off-topic: The streamlining of the A4's were removed during World War 2. Wouldn't doing so temporary make them a different "A" number?



The streamlining of the A4's wasn't removed during World War 2, all they removed were the side panels covering the wheels, this was to make maintenance easier.
 
Okay, I think I know what order I'm going to list them in.

The streamlining of the A4's wasn't removed during World War 2, all they removed were the side panels covering the wheels, this was to make maintenance easier.
OHHH!

PS: What's the main physical looking difference between A1 to A3 (A4 is OBVIOUS)?
 
PS: What's the main physical looking difference between A1 to A3 (A4 is OBVIOUS)?

One of the main differences between an A1 & A3 is the position of the square cover over the superheater header (but this doesn't always follow due to rebuilds), and an A2 has a longer drop between the bottom of the smokebox door & the buffer beam top than the A1 & A3.
 
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There are 3 different LNER A1s and at least 5 different A2s, all varying by different amounts.

The original Raven A2s were completely different, as they weren't an LNER design but an NER one. The first A1 (later reclassified as A10) is basically the same as an A3 but without the superheater header covers on the smoke box.

The later Thompson and Peppercorn A1s had bigger fireboxes, V fronted cabs higher running plates and smoke deflectors amongst many other differences. The later A2s were similar to the A1s but with smaller driving wheels. Thompson locos had the cylinders over the second bogie wheel but the peppercorn ones reverted to having the cylinders between the bogie wheels.
 
Replying to edh6:
Gee, the UK must have/had some complicated way of "numbering" locos.

With rare exceptions most NSW (for example) were & are easier after "standardising" the number system, just had something such as Z19, Z20, C30, C32, C34, C35, C36, C38, D59, AD60 (Beyer Garratt) Class, etc and similar to the earlier diesels starting with 40 Class. The letters usually meant something, although the 33 were 32 Classes - their were more than 100 32 Classes.

Now, the list order I will put them in is ____ if ____ works!
 
I'd follow the method used in the ABC 'Combined Volume' published by Ian Allan when listing the shed allocations of each loco:
First - group locos into ex-GWR, ex-LMS, ex-SR, ex-LNER, BR (steam), BR (diesel), BR (electric)
Second - list in number order
Paul
 
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