GWR 455 Class
class of 140 British 2-4-0T locomotives
The GWR 455 Class, also called the "Metropolitan" or "Metro" Tanks, was a series of 140 2-4-0T locomotives built for the Great Western Railway, originally for their London suburban services, including running on the underground section of the Metropolitan Railway, the source of their nickname. Later on the class was seen on many other parts of the GWR system. Sixty "Metro" Tanks were built, from 1868 onwards, during the lifetime of their designer, Joseph Armstrong. His successor William Dean regarded the class so highly that he would add a further 80, the final 20 examples appearing as late as 1899. The "Metros" were all built at Swindon Works, in nine lots of ten or 20 engines each.
Numbering
Variations
The first two batches had inside frames on all axles, but subsequently the leading wheels had outside axleboxes. The original 20 engines had a shorter coupled wheelbase than all the others, 8 ft 0 in (2.438 m) rather than 8 ft 3 in (2.515 m). Nos. 455–470 were partially rebuilt with longer wheelbases when first reboilered, in the 1880s, though not between the coupled wheels. Many of the earlier engines were rebuilt with larger tanks when reboilered, while the locomotives built in 1899 had still larger side tanks and coal bunkers when new; Nos.
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This entry incorporates text from “GWR 455 Class” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.