The locomotive fleet at 1960 was a fleet in transition. Front-line work was still steam: the twelve BR Standard classes designed after nationalisation, and the surviving Big Four express and mixed-traffic engines that had been built before it. Alongside them the pilot-scheme and first main-line diesels of the 1955 Modernisation Plan were arriving in numbers, and the first main-line electrics were at work on the Southern, the Great Eastern, and the Woodhead route. This section catalogues each class by group, with the BR numbering range, wheel arrangement or diesel type, builder, and preservation status, each cited to the standard references.
Diesel classes are filed here under their TOPS numbers (Class 47, Class 55), because that is how they are known today, but each class page opens with the pre-TOPS designation it carried in 1960 (Brush Type 4, English Electric Type 5) so that readers arriving from a period Ian Allan ABC recognise the class.
By group
BR Standard steam
The twelve standard classes designed under R.A. Riddles and built from 1951, from the Class 2 tank engines to the Class 9F heavy freight 2-10-0. The last steam locomotive built for British Railways, 9F 92220 Evening Star, came from Swindon in 1960.
Big Four survivors
The express and mixed-traffic classes inherited from the GWR, LMS, LNER, and SR and still in front-line service in 1960: the Coronations and Black Fives, the Gresley and Peppercorn Pacifics, the Kings and Castles, and the Bulleid Pacifics.
BR diesel
The pilot-scheme and first main-line diesels of the Modernisation Plan, from the Type 1 shunters and trip engines to the Type 4 and Type 5 main-line locomotives: the Brush Type 4 (Class 47) and the English Electric Deltic (Class 55).
BR electric
The first main-line electrics: the Southern Region electro-diesels and third-rail locomotives, the Woodhead route Class 76 and 77, and the 25kV AC locomotives ordered for the West Coast Main Line electrification then under way. Class pages to follow.
How this catalogue is sourced
Class histories and numbering ranges are taken from the RCTS Locomotives of the LNER, LMS, GWR, SR and BR Standard series, with Yeadon’s Register of LNER Locomotives for the LNER classes. Period allocations are cross-checked against the Ian Allan ABC of British Railways Locomotives Combined Volume for the appropriate year. Where the number of preserved examples is stated it reflects the current preservation record and is corrected as machines change status.
- RCTS Locomotives of the LNER / LMS / GWR / SR / BR Standard Classes series.
- Yeadon’s Register of LNER Locomotives.
- Ian Allan ABC of British Railways Locomotives, Combined Volume.