Nine Elms Locomotive Shed

LOCOMOTIVE NUMBERING

At Grouping in 1923 the Southern left the allocated numbers unaltered but prefixed them 'E', 'B' or 'A', the intials of the main workshops of the three main constituents, South Western, Brighton and South Eastern & Chatham. This system was abandoned in 1931 when, instead, 1000 was added to the numbers of ex-SECR engines and 2000 to those from the Brighton. Ex-LSWR numbers remained unaltered. The numbers allocated to SR-built Maunsell designs, 'Arthurs', 'Nelsons' and 'Schools' for example, followed the ex-LSWR series. But those Maunsell designs pre-dating Grouping and those that followed on from them went into the ex-SECR sequence, that is the 'Moguls' of 'N', 'N1', 'U' and 'U1', and the 'W' class 2-6-4 tanks and the splendid 'L1' 4-4-0s. 30000 was added to all at Nationalisation.

Jeremy Clarke

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