SER O class

The South Eastern Railway O Class was a class of 0-6-0 steam locomotives designed for goods work and built between 1878 and 1899 for the South Eastern Railway in Kent. Of the 122 built, Sharp, Stewart and Company received four orders totalling 65, and the other 57 were built at the railway's own Ashford Works. They were the main goods engines of the railway until the more powerful C class arrived after the 1899 amalgamation with the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, which formed the South Eastern and Chatham Railway. The class was then relegated to the many branch lines of Kent, on both passenger and goods work, including the Kent and East Sussex Railway and the East Kent Railway. Twenty-eight received replacement boilers between 1900 and 1923, and 59 were rebuilt with larger boilers as the O1 class between 1903 and 1932. All had been withdrawn by 1962, and one rebuilt example, SECR number 65, survives on the Bluebell Railway.