MGWR Classes F, Fa, and Fb

The MGWR Classes F, Fa and Fb were a group of similar 0-6-0 steam locomotives of the Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland, designed and built between 1921 and 1924 to handle goods work and local passenger traffic. The design came from the drawing office at the Broadstone Works in Dublin under Chief Mechanical Engineer Walter H. Morton, and was meant to replace the poorly performing Class C 4-4-0 locomotives on the Mullingar to Dublin section. Of the 23 built, the first three were Class F, the next ten, including five built by Armstrong Whitworth, were Class Fa, and the last ten, with raised running plates, were Class Fb. The Great Southern Railways classed them as Class 623 or J5, and they passed to Coras Iompair Eireann in 1945. In practice they worked mainly freight, notably heavy livestock trains, and examples survived until 1963.