LB&SCR E2 class. The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) E2 class was a class of  steam locomotives designed by Lawson Billinton, intended for shunting and short distance goods trains. Ten examples were built between 1913 and 1916. Some of these tank engines were trialled on push-pull passenger trains in which they were proven to be unworthy due to their roughness at speed and inadequate coal bunker capacity. All were withdrawn from service and scrapped between 1961 and 1963.

History
By 1910, many of the Stroudley 0-6-0T E1 class locomotives were worn out or inadequate for the heavier duties required of them. D. E. Marsh intended to rebuild some examples with a larger boiler, but only one E1X rebuild had been completed by the time of his unexpected retirement in 1911. Marsh's successor, Billinton ousted the rebuilding of older engines policy and designed a new 0-6-0 tank engine design, commissioning Brighton works to build these engines to replace the obsolete Stroudley E1 engines. By October 1912, Brighton Works began construction of the first batch of five E2s, with No. 100 delivered in June 1913. Nos. 101-104 followed on through to January 1914, taking approximately two months to build each engine. Additionally, they each cost £2,010 for Brighton works to build them.

The E2 class included several features found on other LB&SCR classes including an I2 class boiler to accommodate the Weir pump and hot water injector for use on high-pressure steam. They had slotted frames, six small  driving wheels, and a water tank capacity of . The first three engines were equipped with a reverser handle, whilst the last two were fitted with a screw-and-handle system.

No. 100 was sent to work at Eastbourne, shunting trains in the yard and pulling mid-day goods trains from there to the Ballast Hole on the Crumbles beach. This supplied shingle rocks for the LB&SCR to use as track ballast, including the Midland Railway (MR) to balanced its coal lines. Nos. 101-104 were allocated to engine sheds based at Battersea, Brighton, and New Cross. Nos. 103 and 104 were trialled on local push-pull motor train service between London Bridge, Forest Hill and Crystal Palace, where each engine was running in the middle of two sets of three coaches. However, they were proven to be unsuccessful due to their excessive oscillation, unsteadiness at speed and insufficient coal bunker capacity.

Because of the inadequate water tank capacity on the first five engines, Billinton gave the next batch of five engines with extended side tanks, increasing up to . The second batch, Nos. 105-109, were delayed by the onset of World War I, but were eventually delivered between June 1915 and October 1916, costing £2,217 each. The new E2s were allocated to London for use as station pilots, shunting empty coaches in and out of London Bridge and Victoria stations, but the increased demand of wartime saw them required to move wagons out to the northern railways.

In May 1916, No. 105 was first assigned to Battersea and then to Three Bridges shed to assist in marshalling goods trains coming to and from north and west. However, the local engine crews preferred to use the older  E3 tank engines, so No. 105 returned to Battersea. In 1921, with the LB&SCR increasing their wages, Billinton was instructed to carry out a series of time-and-motion studies covering likely economies in the railway department. As such, No. 109 was fitted with a service movement recorder to monitor its performance as a shunter.

Operations
Following the electrification of the Brighton line in 1936, the class was used as replacements for the former LCDR T class at the Herne Hill marshalling yard, around Victoria station and at Dover harbour. During World War II, they also replaced the SR Z class at Hither Green marshalling yard.

The class were trialled as dock shunters at Southampton in the 1950s, and were found to be suitable for the task. Six examples were retained for this purpose until their replacement by British Rail Class 07 diesel shunters in 1962.

Withdrawal of the class took place between February 1961 and April 1963, and were all scrapped.

Fleet summary

In fiction
In 1946, Reginald Payne used the later series of E2 locomotives as the basis for the character Thomas the Tank Engine in the second book of The Railway Series by the Reverend W. Awdry.

OO gauge models
Trix produced a model of the first series Class E2 in 1961.  It was designed for the Trix Twin 3-rail system but could be converted to 2-rail using the optional 2-rail pick up included with the locomotive.

Hornby produced the locomotive in its earliest form as an OO gauge model. Production lasted from 1979 to 1985 in three distinct variants with four reference numbers. In 1985 the tooling was retired and after some alterations, was instead used as the basis for the Thomas the Tank Engine model.

Bachmann have also produced several different-coloured E2-based models in their Junior Range.

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

 LB&SCR online, E2 class
 Southern E-Group – LB&SCR E2 Class page

0-6-0T locomotives
E2
Railway locomotives introduced in 1913
Scrapped locomotives
Standard gauge steam locomotives of Great Britain