LSWR 415 class

The LSWR 415 class was a class of 4-4-2 tank locomotives designed by William Adams and introduced in 1882 for suburban passenger work on the London and South Western Railway. It grew out of Adams's earlier 46 class, adding a trailing radial axle to carry a larger coal bunker with a back tank for extra water, which gave the type its nickname of Radial Tank. Because the railway's own Nine Elms works was already stretched, four contractors built the 71 locomotives between 1882 and 1885: Robert Stephenson and Company supplied 28, Dübs and Company 20, Beyer, Peacock and Company 12 and Neilson and Company 11. Dugald Drummond's M7 class and electrification pushed the engines out of the London suburban services, and most were withdrawn in the early 1920s, but their ability to take tight curves kept three of them at work on the Lyme Regis branch into the early 1960s. One of those three, No. 488, survives on the Bluebell Railway.