LT&SR 79 Class

The London, Tilbury and Southend Railway 79 Class was a class of 4-4-2T suburban tank engines designed by Thomas Whitelegg as a development of the railway's earlier 37 Class. The first four locomotives were ordered by the railway itself and numbered 79 to 82, each named after a place in Essex near its route. After the Midland Railway absorbed the company in 1912 they were renumbered 2176 to 2179 and lost their names, and the Midland gave the design the power classification 3P. Construction continued after that: an order for ten locomotives was delivered in 1923, just after the grouping, and the London, Midland and Scottish Railway took 35 in all, with the last ten arriving in 1930. Five of those were built by Nasmyth, Wilson and Company and the other thirty at Derby Works. Later in life the engines were displaced from the Tilbury line and worked ex-Midland routes in the East Midlands. The class could reach a top speed of 65 mph (105 km/h). One locomotive, number 80 Thundersley, has been preserved and is on static display at the Bressingham Steam and Gardens in Norfolk.