The term “Lancing Singles” most specifically refers to two 2-2-2 locomotives designed by Craven and built for the LB&SCR in 1861, but also to a third one that had already been built in 1858 and was largely similar. All had outside sandwich frames and inside iron plate frames. All three axles were mounted in the outside frames, but the driving axle had additional bearings in the inside frames. The diameter of the driving wheels of all locomotives was six and a half feet or 1,981 mm. All had double fireboxes which were separated by a water jacket.

No. 132 built in December 1858 received no name and had cylinders of 16 by 22 inches. The other two, Numbers 146 and 147, were completed in July 1861. They received the names “Lancing” and “Worthing”. Apart from being heavier than 132, they had a slightly longer wheelbase and a cylinder diameter of 17 inches. The drawing of 146 shows a steam tube that runs from the smoke box to the trailing end of the locomotive. It was used to heat the feed water with exhaust steam. No. 132 was withdrawn in August 1875, the other two only followed in April 1886.

For commuter traffic in the south and southeast of London, William Stroudley developed the class A1, of which a total of 50 were built between 1872 and 1880. The tank locomotives with an 0-6-0T wheel arrangement had small driving wheels and were able to rapidly accelerate the commuter trains of that time. Nevertheless, they were able to reach speeds of up to 60 mph (97 km/h) and a sustained speed of just under 50 mph (80 km/h). Because of their small size and barking exhaust noise, they were nicknamed “terriers”.

With the introduction of the more powerful class D1 with 0-4-2T wheel arrangement and the electrification of the first commuter lines, they were no longer needed in the London area. 23 were sold to various other operators and the remainder distributed to rural lines, mainly in Sussex. There they were mostly used in passenger service, sometimes also as push-pull trains. Others were used in shunting duties.

Between 1911 and 1913, 17 A1s were rebuilt into the A1X, becoming heavier and having, among other things, larger cylinders and a longer smokebox. Many survived the Southern Railway and came to the British Railways. Many retirements only came from 1960 onwards. The last ones only disappeared in November 1963 when the Hayling Island Branch was closed.

The E2 was a class of 0-6-0T tank locomotives introduced by L.B. Billinton in 1913 for shunting, piloting duties and local goods. It was used to replace Stroudley's class E1 and actually, the prototype for the E2 was a rebuilt E1. In 1911 D.E. Marsh took No. 89 “Brest” and equipped it with a larger boiler, designating it class E1X. Two years later Billinton decided that it would be better to build new and larger locomotives from the start, and so he designed the E2. It was his first design for the LB&SCR, nine years after his father R.J. Billinton died in office.

The boiler was essentially the same as in the 4-4-2T class I2 built by Marsh from 1907. The water in the side tanks was heated by exhaust from the cylinders. To feed the hot water into the boiler, a Weir pump was used instead of injectors. After the first batch of five built in 1913 and 1914, it became clear that the water supplies were too small. So the five locomotives of the second batch of 1915 and 1916 were built with water tanks which had been made longer. Their bottom was cut out at the front to give access to the motion.

Tests in suburban passenger service showed that the coal bunker was still too small to cover longer distances with heavy trains. To they still remained in shunting and pilot service and sometimes hauled local goods trains. From 1923, they became numbers 2100 to 2109 of the Southern Railway. British Railways numbered them 32100 to 32109 and replaced the Weir pumps with injectors. All were withdrawn between 1961 and 1963 and scrapped.

The 0-6-2T class E3 was designed by Stroudley to replace the 0-6-0T E1 in short-distance goods and shunting duties. He only ordered the production of one prototype in 1891, but did not survive its completion. His successor Billinton took some time to fix the teething problems and had Brighton produce 16 more in 1894 and 1895. They were also called “Small Radials”, while the E4 was called “Large Radials”.

From 1918, they were rebuilt with a new boiler that had an extended smokebox and was operated at a higher pressure of 170 psi. The Southern Railway later decreased the cylinder diameter from 18 to 17.5 inches. Only the prototype was withdrawn in 1934. The other 16 were all taken over by British Railways and the last one was gone by 1959.

Stroudley had “Grosvenor” built in 1874 for the LB&SCR as a prototype for a new express locomotive. However, like the entire locomotive, the driving wheel diameter of six feet and nine inches (2.057 mm) was too large. So in 1876 Abergavenny was ordered, which had three inches smaller driving wheels and was generally lighter. Finally, 24 production machines followed, which had the wheel diameter of Abergavenny and were again slightly heavier. All locomotives, including the prototypes, were used in front of fast trains for a long time. They were withdrawn between 1905 and 1914 after they had been replaced by locomotives with two coupled axles. Grosvenor also reached a mileage just over a million miles. 

The H2 was basically a superheated variant of the H1 Atlantic. Introduced when L.B. Billinton was in office, most of its design was still identical with the predecessor class introduced by D.E. Marsh. However, it could still be traced back to the large boilered GNR C1. Compared to the H1, the H2 used larger cylinders, while a reduced boiler pressure of 170 psi was still sufficient thanks to the Schmidt type superheater. The firebox was still the same. Six were built at Brighton in 1911 and 1912.

At the beginning, they hauled the most important express trains between Victoria and Brighton, like the Brighton Belle. After new locomotives had been introduced in the middle of the twenties, they were used for other express services. At this time, Maunsell also superheated their H1 sisters. In 1938 the boiler pressure of the H2 was increased to 200 psi, increasing the starting tractive effort to 24,500 pounds. 

They lost many of their tasks in World War II when the cross-channel ferries were stopped. Fortunately, these services resumed after the war ended. One of the six locomotives was withdrawn in 1949 and the rest followed between 1956 and 1958. After the turn of the millennium, the Bluebell Railway started to construct a replica of No. 32424 “Beachy Head” that had been the last one of the class to be withdrawn. It uses a boiler of the GNR C1 and is operational again since 2024.

The I1 was built in two batches of ten locomotives each in 1906 and 1907 for the suburban lines in south London. They had a 4-4-2T wheel arrangement with a five foot six inch driving wheel diameter and a condensing apparatus for use in urban environments. In the second batch, the driving wheels and coupling rods of the class D1 were used, what shortened the wheelbase.

Occasionally they were also used as far as Brighton or hauled the royal train. However, they were bad steamers on suburban lines with short distances between stations. After being taken over by the Southern Railway, between 1925 and 1932 they received new superheated boilers left over from the rebuild of the classes I3 and B4. Now performing better only two were retired before 1948 and the the last ones of the remainder were used by British Railways until 1951.

Around 1910, the LB&SCR needed a new locomotive for express goods trains because the old, rebuilt 0-6-0 locomotives were no longer sufficient. As there were many fast passenger trains on the LB&SCR network and the electrification of suburban lines in London was also being conceived, there were special requirements. On the one hand, the trains had to be accelerated quickly out of the sidings, but they also had to continue at high line speeds in order not to slow down passenger traffic. In addition, the new locomotive was to be fitted with train heating in order to be able to assist with heavy passenger trains during the holiday season.

The result was the class K, designed by Lawson Butzkopfski Billinton with a 2-6-0 wheel arrangement. It was an innovative design that was both the first locomotive with this wheel arrangement for the LB&SCR and the first with a Belpaire firebox. It also received a Robinson superheater, the largest tender available and other modern equipment. Ten were delivered in 1913. These were used extensively during World War I to transport ammunition, equipment and troops to ports. Typically, trains of 1,000 long tons were hauled at speeds between 30 and 35 mph. 

After the war, the initial plan was to design a tank locomotive with a 2-6-2T wheel arrangement. However, since this would not be able to carry sufficient supplies, ten more of the K were ordered instead. Due to the workload of the workshops at Brighton, however, only seven were delivered. After the grouping in 1923, the class K initially provided other important services for the Southern Railway on the former LB&SCR network. During this time, various improvements were tested on the locomotives, but none of these would have brought sufficient benefits in daily work.

This changed in 1933 with the electrification of the Brighton Main Line because the locomotives had now become a traffic obstruction here. In order to be able to use them on other lines, they first had to be adapted to the smaller loading gauge elsewhere. To accomplish this, the height of the chimney, steam dome and cab roof was reduced between 1929 and 1939. After performing the same duties in World War II as in World War I, they continued to be used by British Railways and were all withdrawn in November and December 1962. In the extremely harsh winter that followed, at least one engine was taken out of storage to help keep operations going.

The London, Brighton & South Coast Railway had relatively light express trains on the London to Portsmouth line, which were still pulled by Singles in the early 1890s. Since these had reached their limits, Robert Billinton developed the first LB&SCR locomotives with a leading bogie. Between 1895 and 1898 25 were built in Brighton, designated class B2.

The nickname “Grasshopper” is probably a reference to unsteady running characteristics. Since their power was described as too low for their tasks, Billinton had the B3 “Bessemer” built in 1897 with a larger boiler. There were initially no modifications to the existing locomotives und also the ones built until 1898 got the original boiler.

It was only Marsh who had all B2 and B3 rebuilt from 1906 onwards with the same boiler as the class C3 freight locomotives, which became class B2x. This boiler was heavier, but had a smaller heating surface and still achieved greater output. The B2x was phased out with the electrification of the line to Portsmouth between 1929 and 1933.

The LB&SCR class B4 express locomotives were developed in 1899 by L.B. Billinton because the B2, which had been introduced just a few years earlier, proved to be too weak. Plans were again made to build 25 in Brighton. Since the completion of the third was delayed due to a large backlog of repairs, 25 more B4 were ordered from Sharp, Stewart & Co., all of which were delivered in 1901. Five more were finally built in Brighton in 1902 using boilers supplied by Sharp.

The B4 initially pulled the heaviest express trains until more powerful locomotives appeared in 1912. Between 1922 and 1924, Billinton's son L.B. Billinton had a total of twelve B4 rebuilt with larger superheated boilers and larger cylinders. Because these boilers were too long for the frames, new, longer frames had to be used. Since the locomotives were almost new, they were referred to as class B4x.

Although the boiler of the B4x delivered a lot of steam, it turned out that due to the limited space above the bogie, sufficiently large valves could not be installed and the blast pipe was also not optimally arranged. This meant that they could not fully utilize the steam and timetable speeds higher than 70 mph (113 km/h) could not be scheduled.

The use of the B4 and B4x with express trains ended as early as 1929, so that other tasks were assigned to them. Between 1934 and 1939, 13 locomotives were retired until the Second World War initially stopped this process. Most of the 20 remaining ones came to the British Railways, where all non-rebuilt B4 were retired by May 1951. The B4x followed until December of the same year.