In 1903, George Churchward, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Great Western Railway, embarked upon his locomotive improvement scheme with three types of ‘standard’ class engines, of which his 2-6-2T design was destined to become probably the GWR’s most useful locomotive, lasting in traffic until the last month of Western Region steam operations in December 1965. The Class prototype, No. 99, spent two years working across the GWR system and the lessons learnt from its performance were incorporated into the thirty-nine production locomotives of the 3100 Class, introduced during 1905/1906.

At eighteen tons, they were designated as red route engines, initially being able to cover 42% of the GWR network. In 1927 experiments were undertaken to reduce the weight distribution of the class leading to the locomotives gaining blue route clearance and being renumbered in the 5111-5149 range, changing the class designation to 5100 in the process. At the same time as the 3100 class locomotives were being converted to 5100 class, further locomotives to the same design and blue route designation were built, designated as the 5101 class. 140 locomotives were built between 1929 and 1949, incorporating all the modifications applied to the 3100 class. The need for new locomotives to work accelerated London suburban services at the beginning of the 1930s led to further development of the 5101 class, an uprated Standard 2 boiler being fitted to seventy new locomotives built between 1931 and 1935. Numbered in the 6100- 6169 range, they were designated as the 6100 class, being stationed at every London depot and replacing all other passenger tank locomotives except the auto-train fitted engines.

It was only the reorganisation of the London suburban timetables in 1955 that led to some locomotives being transferred away from London and it was these examples that survived to the end of steam on the Western Region. Built at Swindon Works under Lot No. 278 in January 1933, Diagram A10 Class 6100 'Large Prairie' No. 6147 entered traffic with the London Division, remaining there until 3 December 1960. From London, 6147 was moved to Bristol, first at St. Philips Marsh and then at Bristol Barrow Road, before moving to Westbury in November 1963 and the locomotive ended its working life at 85A Worcester Shed in January 1966, having moved there in January 1964.

In 1903, George Churchward, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Great Western Railway, embarked upon his locomotive improvement scheme with three types of ‘standard’ class engines, of which his 2-6-2T design was destined to become probably the GWR’s most useful locomotive, lasting in traffic until the last month of Western Region steam operations in December 1965. The Class prototype, No. 99, spent two years working across the GWR system and the lessons learnt from its performance were incorporated into the thirty-nine production locomotives of the 3100 Class, introduced during 1905/1906.

At eighteen tons, they were designated as red route engines, initially being able to cover 42% of the GWR network. In 1927 experiments were undertaken to reduce the weight distribution of the class leading to the locomotives gaining blue route clearance and being renumbered in the 5111-5149 range, changing the class designation to 5100 in the process. At the same time as the 3100 class locomotives were being converted to 5100 class, further locomotives to the same design and blue route designation were built, designated as the 5101 class. 140 locomotives were built between 1929 and 1949, incorporating all the modifications applied to the 3100 class. The need for new locomotives to work accelerated London suburban services at the beginning of the 1930s led to further development of the 5101 class, an uprated Standard 2 boiler being fitted to seventy new locomotives built between 1931 and 1935.

Numbered in the 6100- 6169 range, they were designated as the 6100 class, being stationed at every London depot and replacing all other passenger tank locomotives except the auto-train fitted engines. It was only the reorganisation of the London suburban timetables in 1955 that led to some locomotives being transferred away from London and it was these examples that survived to the end of steam on the Western Region. Built at Swindon Works under Lot No. 259 during April 1931, Diagram A9 Class 5101 'Large Prairie' No. 5189 entered traffic with the Wolverhampton Division, with all bar fifteen of the 5101 fleet of ‘Large Prairies’ forming the mainstay of the suburban passenger services until the early 1940s. On entering service with British Railways in 1948, 5189 was allocated to Stourbridge Junction, from where it would have mainly worked local services towards Birmingham, but the locomotive was one of the earlier withdrawals from traffic due to increasing use of Diesel units, being withdrawn at the end of August 1959.

The A2/3 Class were designed by Edward Thompson as standard express passenger locomotives. After Sir Nigel Gresley’s unexpected death in April 1941, Edward Thompson desired to standardise the locomotives of the LNER. This process involved rebuilding locomotives using standard components such as wheel sizes and boiler designs. The A2/3 Class were new built to a similar specification to the A2/2 rebuilds, differing in cylinder sizes and boiler pressure. Thompson advocated divided drive, a system in which the middle cylinder drove the forward two of the six driving wheels whilst the outside cylinders drove the middle two.

Due to his quest for standardisation, this arrangement necessitated the middle cylinder to be placed further forward than normal and the outside cylinders further back, behind the leading bogie, so that standard connecting rods could be used for all cylinders. LNER No. 511 'Airbourne' was built at Doncaster Works and entered service in July 1946. After nationalisation, it was renumbered 60511 and assigned to the Heaton engine shed. It was withdrawn in November 1962.

Upon becoming Chief Mechanical Engineer of the LNER, Thompson sought to create an unstreamlined, mixed traffic version of Gresley’s A4 Pacific locomotives. Being unable to secure permission to construct new locomotives, Thompson decided to rebuild the 2-8-2 P2 Class locomotives as the new A2/2 Class. Thompson advocated divided drive, a system in which the middle cylinder drove the forward two of the six driving wheels whilst the outside cylinders drove the middle two.

Due to his quest for standardisation, this arrangement necessitated the middle cylinder to be placed further forward than normal and the outside cylinders further back, behind the leading bogie, so that standard connecting rods could be used for all cylinders. Although the new designs retained much of the P2’s power despite their lighter weight, wheel slip issues made them unsuitable for the routes the P2’s had been designed for. P2 No. 2002 ‘Earl Marischal’ was rebuilt to become a A2/2 in June 1944, before being renumbered 502 in 1946 and 60502 upon the nationalisation of the railways. After becoming a A2/2, ‘Earl Marischal’ returned to Scotland before being moved south of the border to the York Shed at the end of 1949. The locomotive was withdrawn for service in 1961

Designed by R. A. Riddles and derived from Ivatt’s LMS 2MT 2-6-0 locomotive design, itself a variation of Ivatt’s Class 2 2-6-2T, the BR Standard Class 2 was the smallest of the BR standards and featured changes to the LMS design such as smaller cabs so that they could be used across the network where loading gauges were less generous. Darlington works was responsible for building the entire fleet of 65 engines and for a time construction of the LMS and BR designs overlapped. Like the LMS predecessor the BR design had a tender cab to enhance crew protection and visibility when running tender-first. Built as part of a batch of 10 destined for the Scottish Region, No. 78054 was built in 1955 and allocated to the Motherwell depot. The locomotive started out life hauling freight however after a year it was moved to Keith where it ran passenger services.

The locomotive was also allocated to Aberdeen Ferryhill and Bathgate sheds before being withdrawn in December 1965.

Designed by R. A. Riddles and derived from Ivatt’s LMS 2MT 2-6-0 locomotive design, itself a variation of Ivatt’s Class 2 2-6-2T, the BR Standard Class 2 was the smallest of the BR standards and featured changes to the LMS design such as smaller cabs so that they could be used across the network where loading gauges were less generous. Darlington works was responsible for building the entire fleet of 65 engines and for a time construction of the LMS and BR designs overlapped. Like the LMS predecessor the BR design had a tender cab to enhance crew protection and visibility when running tender-first. 78006 was one of the first batch of the 2MT standard design built by British Railways. The locomotives in this batch were built for the Western Region at Darlington who had experience building the LMS Ivatt 2-6-0s.

The locomotive was initially assigned to the Oswestry depot for work in mid-Wales where the enclosed cab design proved a huge advantage. From 1962 the locomotive was based in Gloucester where it remained until withdrawal in December 1965.

The British Railways Standard 9F Class was a 2-10-0 steam locomotive, the last of the standardised BR designs. The Robert Riddles design was intended as a long distance heavy express freight locomotive. In total 251 of the class were produced between January 1954 and March 1960, with the final locomotive No. 92220 ‘Evening Star’ being the last steam locomotive built by British Railways. The huge length of the 10 coupled driving wheels proved problematic when faced with tight curves, a situation that freight haulage would make inevitable. A solution was found by removing the flanges from the centre driving wheel and reducing the size on the flanges on the second and fourth driving axle’s wheels. Riddles had chosen the 2-10-0 wheel configuration in-order to spread the load of the boiler over a greater area.

This meant that the boiler had to be raised considerably compared to other designs to allow the firebox to sit above the trailing driving wheels. As a result, the 9F features a distinctive void between the suspended boiler and the footplate. In operation the class proved extremely versatile. Not only did the 9F excel as a freight locomotive, but when required it also succeeded as a passenger locomotive. Reports even suggest that when 92220 ‘Evening Star’ was used to pull the Red Dragon express service between Cardiff and London it was forced to delay its arrival to allow the restaurant services to be completed, having outperformed the normal Britannia Class locomotives used on the service. This was not the only time 9Fs had been recorded outperforming dedicated express locomotives and on such services the locomotives were capable of running at over 90mph. This combination of high speed, fast acceleration and powerful hauling capabilities mean that many consider the class to be pinnacle of British steam locomotive design. Locomotive numbers 92165–92167 were built with a mechanical stoker. This system used a helical screw to move coal from the tender straight into the firebox. This meant that coal could be burnt a faster rate than a fireman could maintain otherwise. Systems like this proved extremely useful on long distance American railways however in Britain it was rare for a locomotive to require such as high rate of coal delivery over a long period of time meaning that a good fireman could prove just as effective. No. 92167 was built with a double chimney and a mechanical stoker in 1958 at Crewe and entered service at the end of March, stationed at the Saltley depot. In March 1962 it was moved to Tyne Dock, before moving on to Bidston by the end of the year. In early 1963 No. 92167 moved to its penultimate shed, Birkenhead Mollington Street, where it stayed until 1967 at which point it was allocated to its final shed at Carnforth before being withdrawn in mid-1968.

The British Railways Standard 9F Class was a 2-10-0 steam locomotive, the last of the standardised BR designs. The Robert Riddles design was intended as a long distance heavy express freight locomotive. In total 251 of the class were produced between January 1954 and March 1960, with the final locomotive No. 92220 ‘Evening Star’ being the last steam locomotive built by British Railways. The huge length of the 10 coupled driving wheels proved problematic when faced with tight curves, a situation that freight haulage would make inevitable. A solution was found by removing the flanges from the centre driving wheel and reducing the size on the flanges on the second and fourth driving axle’s wheels. Riddles had chosen the 2-10-0 wheel configuration in-order to spread the load of the boiler over a greater area.

This meant that the boiler had to be raised considerably compared to other designs to allow the firebox to sit above the trailing driving wheels. As a result, the 9F features a distinctive void between the suspended boiler and the footplate. In operation the class proved extremely versatile. Not only did the 9F excel as a freight locomotive, but when required it also succeeded as a passenger locomotive. Reports even suggest that when 92220 ‘Evening Star’ was used to pull the Red Dragon express service between Cardiff and London it was forced to delay its arrival to allow the restaurant services to be completed, having outperformed the normal Britannia Class locomotives used on the service. This was not the only time 9Fs had been recorded outperforming dedicated express locomotives and on such services the locomotives were capable of running at over 90mph. This combination of high speed, fast acceleration and powerful hauling capabilities mean that many consider the class to be pinnacle of British steam locomotive design. Locomotive No. 92194 was built in Swindon during 1958 for use on the Eastern Region. The locomotive was initially allocated to the Doncaster shed where it spent around 8 months between June 1958 and February 1959 at which point it was reallocated to Immingham. Immingham remained the locomotive’s home throughout the rest of its service before withdrawal at the end of 1965, a life of just 7 and a half years.

The BR Standard class 9F, designed by Robert Riddles, was a 2-10-0 steam locomotive intended to be used for long distance freight. Capable of speeds of up to 90 miles per hour, the class proved highly versatile and 9Fs were even used to haul passenger trains in the 1950s. 'Evening Star' was built at Swindon Works in 1960 and was the last steam locomotive to be built by British Railways, and the 999th BR standard class locomotive. No. 92220’s life was special from the beginning, with a naming ceremony taking place in March 1960. ‘Evening Star’ was the only 9F to be named by BR and the only 9F to receive a lined green passenger express livery. The name 'Evening Star' was chosen following a competition held by the BR Western Region Staff Magazine.

The locomotive was withdrawn from service in 1965 after just five short years, and stored at Severn Tunnel Junction Marshalling Yard, after incurring minor damage in a shunting accident at Cardiff Docks. In preservation ‘Evening Star' became part of the national collection and after the completion of the National Railway Museum was based at York, occasionally operating on the mainline and visiting heritage lines. Although ‘Evening Star’ has moved around in recent years such as returning to its birthplace, Swindon in 2008, the locomotive can currently be found on static display at the NRM in York. This model depicts ‘Evening Star’ as the locomotive would have been when withdrawn from British Railways service in 1965.