SR Merchant Navy Class

Rebuilt 35024 East Asiatic Company at Exeter St Davids, 1962 with Atlantic Coast Express headboard.

The Southern Railway (SR) Merchant Navy Class is a class of 4-6-2 steam locomotive designed by Oliver Bulleid for express passenger work. Thirty were built incorporating a number of novel design features, including an oil bath for the chain-driven valve gear, oval smokebox door and an unusually shaped smokebox. The SR considered naming them after cathedrals, then victories of World War II (a mocked-up nameplate "Graf Spee" was produced). They were eventually named for the major shipping companies of the time, a few of which still exist.

Construction history

The SR number adapted the UIC classification system where "2" and "1" refer to the number of leading and trailing axles respectively, and "C" refers to the number of driving axles - in this case three. All the locomotives therefore carry the prefix 21C. The final batch of ten engines was built after nationalisation and never carried an SR number: their BR number is shown below.

The class were built in three series:

• 21C1-21C10: Completed 1941-1942

• 21C11-21C20: Completed 1944-1945

• 35021-35030: Completed 1948-1949

The novel features mentioned earlier caused trouble, and BR, under RG Jarvis, set about rebuilding the entire class. The first, 35018 "British India Line", emerged from Eastleigh in 1956. The last, 35028 "Clan Line" was outshopped in 1960.

The last few engines in traffic survived until the end of steam on the Southern Region in the summer of 1967.

The SR West Country Class and the identical SR Battle Of Britain Class were lighter versions of the basic Merchant Navy design.

List of Engines and their names

BR No.	SR No.	Name	Builder	Built	Withdrawn	Scrapped	Preserved/location	Notes
35001	21C1	Channel Packet
35002	21C2	Union Castle
35003	21C3	Royal Mail
35004	21C4	Cunard White Star
35005	21C5	Canadian Pacific					Y Mid-Hants Railway
35006	21C6	Peninsular & Oriental S. N. Co.					Y
35007	21C7	Aberdeen Commonwealth
35008	21C8	Orient Line
35009	21C9	Shaw Savill					Y East Lancashire Railway
35010	21C10	Blue Star					Y Colne Valley Railway
35011	21C11	General Steam Navigation					Y Binbrook industrial estates
35012	21C12	United States Lines
35013	21C13	Blue Funnel
35014	21C14	Nederland Line
35015	21C15	Rotterdam Lloyd
35016	21C16	Elder Fyffes
35017	21C17	Belgian Marine
35018	21C18	British India Line					Y
35019	21C19	French Line CGT
35020	21C20	Bibby Line
35021	-	New Zealand Line
35022	-	Holland America Line					Y Southal, London
35023	-	Holland Afrika Line
35024	-	East Asiatic Company
35025	-	Brocklebank Line					Y Great Central Railway
35026	-	Lamport & Holt Line
35027	-	Port Line					Y Southall, London
35028	-	Clan Line					Y steward lane, London
35029	-	Ellerman Lines					Y	National Railway Museum (sectioned)
35030	-	Elder Dempster Lines

Preservation

Many of the class have survived into preservation thanks to the famous Barry Scrapyard, where steam engines which had been bought from British Railways for scrap were stored rather than cut up. One engine, 35028 "Clan Line", was bought by the Merchant Navy Locomotive Preservation Society direct from BR in 1967.

35005, 35006, 35010, 35011, 35018, 35022, 35025, 35027, 35028 and 35029 still exist, although it is very unlikely that all of them will ever steam again.

External links

• Southern e-group page
• General Steam Navigation 35011