Yesterday, while on steamlocomotive.info, I noticed that none of the surviving A1X "Terriers" of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway have information regarding their builder's numbers. Now, I'm hoping I can establish the pattern off of two of the survivors; Stepney (on the Bluebell Railway) and Waddon (and the Canadian Railway Museum in Delson, Quebec). Both Stepney and Waddon were built in December of 1875 with no locomotives of their class seperating their construction. This list shows the A1 class in order from construction:
http://www.semgonline.com/steam/a1x_dat.html
The only problem is that there are no builders numbers provided. By determining Waddon's construction number, my hope is that Stepney's construction number can be determined, as well as the other surviving A1 class engines. This information may help with providing more complete builder's information for the data on steamlocomotive.info regarding the surviving A1 engines, as the builder's numbers are listed as unknown for all the survivors.

Dylan,

The Isle of Wight Steam Railway has two A1X 'Terrier' class locomotives; if you haven't looked at their site, here is a link to their loco roster:

http://www.iwsteamrailway.co.uk/the-railway/locomotives.htm

Regards,
David Crow

I can't find any reference to the terriers having works numbers as such, and they may never have had any apart from their original LBSCR running numbers.

The LBSC had a hybrid locomotive policy, it built engines to its own design at its own works and also ordered them from a variety of outside manufacturers when it suited - if it needed a lot in a hurry perhaps. An LBSCR locomotive built by say, Kitsons of Leeds, would have a Kitsons works number.

All the terriers were built in house.

Tim

I that interesting. I know that Doncaster assigned it's engines a c/n as they were built. I guess I was thinking that the works must have assigned some sort of c/n. Considering the Terriers were renumbered a handful of times over the nearly 130 years, so you really can't use the engine number in relation to the construction number...

Brighton surely must have had some sort of internal records; but I can't find any trace that a practical use was made of these. It is reckoned that about 1200 engines were built there, without some sort of a list how would they know?

If you google search you will come across three particular writers who reorded and wrote about Brighton engines at first hand, apologies if you know them already; Ahrons, Maskelyne, Holcroft, also the Steamindex website.

Brighton Works was said to be cramped and on top of a cliff with no room to expand. Around a hundred years ago, engines awaiting scrapping or repair had to be parked out on what is now the Bluebell Railway because there was no room for them. One remark I came across was that apparently you couldn't simply order a spare for a Brighton engine off the drawing because it might well not have been built exactly to the plan in the first place. If you have to measure the engine to make the part then there is not much point in referring back to a works list to find a drawing!

Tim

Brighton Works, did not use "works numbers". As (nearly) all locomotives were built for use by the owning company (London Brighton & South Coast Railway / Southern Railway / British Railways) running numbers would be sufficient.
Terriers originally had two digit numbers, the first batch were 70-75 (in 1872); the second batch were 64-69 (in 1874), 52-63 (1875), 46-51 (in 1876), 76 (1877) & 35-40 (in 1878); the third batch were 77-84 (in 1878). A total of 50. All were named, after places served by London Brighton & South Coast Railway trains.
In the early 1900's the London Brighton & South Coast Railway added 600 to their numbers; the Southern Railway added 2000 (as they did to all LB&SCR locos) after the 1923 grouping; and British Railways added 30000 (as they did to all Southern Railway locos), so as to avoid duplication in running numbers.
The last terriers were withdrawn by British Railways in 1963. Ten are preserved. Eight are/have/will be again operational.

[The only locomotives built at Brighton not for use by the owning company were 93 Stanier 2-8-0 8F's built in 1943-44 for the LMS/LNER/Ministry of Supply. These were built at the rate of 3 a week, compared to pre-war output of 30 a year. But there was a war on.]

Intriguing... So the original engine number would double as the builders number. I just find it contradictory to normal practice. So, in essence, any renumberings wouldn't effect the construction number. I still find that hard to believe, but the numbers make sense in the way you put it William.

The odd one out which demonstrates the system is Kent and East Sussex Light Railway No.3, Bodiam. This was sold as LBSCR No.70 in 1901 and survived on the KESR until that was nationalised in 1948, when it became British Railways No. 32670 to catch up with all the renumberings it had missed.

Tim