SER Q class

The SER Q class was a class of 0-4-4T steam tank locomotives designed by James Stirling for the South Eastern Railway and introduced in 1881 to work London suburban passenger services, including those over the link to Blackfriars and the Widened Lines opened in 1878. Stirling used the drawings of the 0-4-4T he had designed for the Glasgow and South Western Railway as the basis. One hundred and eighteen were built between 1881 and 1897: sixty by Neilson and Company, forty-eight at the railway's own Ashford Works and ten by Sharp, Stewart and Company. The 1881 to 1882 Ashford series had condensers and short chimneys so that they could run through the Snow Hill tunnel and the East London Railway tunnels. After the class passed to the South Eastern and Chatham Railway in 1899, fifty-five were rebuilt by Harry Wainwright as class Q1 between 1903 and 1919, and the thirty-two unrebuilt engines that reached Southern Railway ownership in 1923 had all been withdrawn by 1929.