page_title: LSWR M7 class
section_title: Withdrawal and preservation
hierarchical_section_title: LSWR M7 class / Withdrawal and preservation
caption_attribution_description: London &amp; South Western Class "M7" 0-4-4T No.53 at Steamtown, Bellows Falls, Vermont 8/70.
context_page_description: The LSWR M7 class is a class of 0-4-4 passenger tank locomotive built between 1897 and 1911. The class was designed by Dugald Drummond for use on the intensive London network of the London and South Western Railway, and performed well in such tasks. Because of their utility, 105 were built and the class went through several modifications over five production batches. For this reason there were detail variations such as frame length. Many of the class were fitted with push-pull operation gear that enabled efficient use on branch line duties without the need to change to the other end of its train at the end of a journey.
  Under LSWR and Southern Railway ownership they had been successful suburban passenger engines, although with the increased availability of newer, standard designs, many of the class were diagrammed to take on a new role as reliable branch line engines, especially in Southern England.
  Members of the class lasted in service until 1964, and two examples have survived into preservation: number 245 in the National Railway Museum, and 53 on the Swanage Railway.
context_section_description: Apart from the experimentally boilered No. 126, all the M7s entered into British Railways service in 1948. In that year No. 672 fell down the lift shaft which provided rolling stock access to the Waterloo and City Line at Waterloo, and was cut up. The remainder survived until 1957, but over the next seven years the remainder of the class was withdrawn as part of the Modernisation Plan..
  Two examples of this quintessential class of steam locomotive have survived into preservation, and both have seen use at certain points in preservation. They are:
caption: No. 30053 (numbered as No. 53) at Steamtown USA in Bellows Falls, Vermont in August 1970.
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