London & North Western DX Goods

In a time when most steam locomotive classes were built in small numbers and with many differences between individual batches, a great achievement of John Ramsbottom was the creation of the DX Goods class for the London & North Western Railway. It was his first design for the LNWR and was meant as a simple, versatile goods locomotive that could be built in large numbers and also used in passenger traffic if needed.

Between 1858 and 1872, a total of 857 have been built at Crewe. With the 0-6-0 wheel arrangement, inside cylinders and outside coupling rods they had the basic layout that could be found on most British goods locomotives for decades to come. They were also the first locomotives to use screw reversing gear. As usual for the time, they had no cab when built.

In the 1870s, they were retrofitted with cabs. 86 additional locomotives were built for the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway between 1871 and 1874. Those built from 1872 had some improvements made by Webb and got a cab from the start. A tank variant was called “Special Tank” and built 278 times for the LNWR starting in 1870.

For use with passenger trains, 500 DX Goods were rebuilt to the “Special DX” starting in 1881. In this process they got vacuum brakes and the boiler pressure was raised to 150 psi. Four similar locomotives were built for the Belgian Malines-Terneuzen railway. Some DX Goods were withdrawn from 1902, but 88 came to the LMS in 1923. The last ones were withdrawn in 1930 and all have been scrapped.