GWR 850 Class
The GWR 850 Class was a large family of small steam shunting locomotives built for the Great Western Railway at Wolverhampton Works between 1874 and 1895. They were designed by George Armstrong and were 0-6-0 saddle tank engines intended for light duties and quick, flexible moves around yards and docks. They ran on standard gauge (4 ft 8 1/2 in) with 4 ft driving wheels, a wheelbase of 13 ft 8 in, coal-fired boilers, and two cylinders sized 15 in by 24 in.
Originally 50 engines were produced (48 new and two rebuilt from Gooch designs of 1860). Over time, 120 locomotives from the 1901 class were rebuilt into the 850 class, giving a total of 170. Some accounts suggest Nos. 1216–1227 were part of the 1901 class, but this is unlikely since they were built before that class.
The class evolved: some engines kept their saddle tanks for life, while others were rebuilt with pannier tanks and Belpaire boilers, and from 1924 many received larger coal bunkers. Seventeen locomotives kept saddle tanks to the end, including numbers 855, 864, 873, 990, 991, 1216, 1904, 1913, 1925, 1932, 1933, 1939, 1944, 1963, 1981, 1984 and 2007.
They were widely used across the GWR network, especially for shunting in docks at Plymouth, Bristol, Llanelly and Birkenhead. A few were sold to industry in 1906, 1913 and 1939.
After nationalisation in 1948, one 850-class engine (992) and many from the 1901 subclass became British Railways locomotives classified as 2F. The Armstrong engines were finally withdrawn by 1958. Only three unconverted saddle-tank locomotives survived into nationalisation: Nos. 1925 and 2007 from the 850 class, and No. 2048, rebuilt from the 2021 class.
No. 1925 is noted for appearing in the 1949 film The Chiltern Hundreds.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 00:51 (CET).