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Locos still in use that carried pre-1957 numbers

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norbitonflyer

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Classes 01, 03 (up to D2022/03022), 04 (up to D2259), 05 (up to D2573), 08 (up to D3366/ 08296) and 10 (up to D3151) originally carried numbers in the 11xxx and 13xxx series, before being given D-prefix numbers in 1957 and, if they survived that long, TOPS numbers in the '70s. Are there any, outside preservation, still in service?

As far as I can make out, 08168 and 08220 (original numbers 13236 and 13290) were still working for their living a couple of years ago.

(Older pre-nationalisation types, including classes 11, 12, 76 and 77, the nine prototype main line diesels, and the sixteen electric locos inherited from the LNER and SR, never received D/E prefix numbers, although Class 76s did eventually get TOPS numbers).
 
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D1537

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08168 and 08220 are both preserved now. I don't think there are any left in service outside preservation.
 

norbitonflyer

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The TOPS numbering system has lasted remarkably well - the first renumberings were 50 years ago this year and the last D-prefix numbers disappeared in 1977 (the Westerns had cast GWR-type numberplates which were not worth changing as they only had a few years to go). The TOPS scheme was the third renumbering scheme in BR's 25-year history up to that point; firstly to remove duplication in the fleets inherited from the Big Four, then the D/E system associated with the modernisation scheme, and finally TOPS.

And in the 25-year history of the "Big Four", two of them had two renumberings - firstly, again to remove duplication in each company's inherited fleets, and later in both the LMS and LNER to tidy things up - the LNER's was the more comprehensive: every locomotive bar one got a new number. So 50 years without a major renumbering scheme is good going.
 

Taunton

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And in the 25-year history of the "Big Four", two of them had two renumberings
One wonders what the man who did the bizarre renumbering plan of the GWR absorbed classes (mostly from South Wales) in the 1923 Grouping had been drinking ...
 

norbitonflyer

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One wonders what the man who did the bizarre renumbering plan of the GWR absorbed classes (mostly from South Wales) in the 1923 Grouping had been drinking ...
The 1923 plan looks quite logical- grouped by wheel arrangement (just like the LNER in 1946)

But oddly, they were re-grouped by former owner in 1946 (just like the LNER in 1923.........)

An interesting oddity are the two locomotives the GWR took over from the Corris Railway in 1929. As their CR numbers did not duplicate any extant GWER loco they kept them. They also survived the 1946 renumbering and, like all GWR locos, kept their numbers at Nationalisation. They were then bought by a private company, and it so happened that their existing numbers corresponded to the next two numbers available in that company's fleet, and they have been the Tallyllyn's Nos 3 and 4 ever since, having kept the same numbers through three changes of ownership.

Conversely a North British Railway petrol-powered shunter, in its 35-year history from 1921 to 1956, was allocated six different numbers
NBR "Petrol No 1" (duplicating a steam engine with the same number)
LNER No 8431 (in 1923),
LNER No 7592 (in 1942, but not actually carried),
LNER No 8189 (1946),
BR number 68189 (in the ex-LNER steam series)
BR number 15099 (in the ex-LNER diesel-electric series)

Five numbers was quite common e.g GNR 1472, LNER 4472, 502 and 103, BR 60103 (arguably now officially 98872)
 
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Taunton

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The [GWR] 1923 plan looks quite logical- grouped by wheel arrangement (just like the LNER in 1946)
That was just the start of it. The absorbed locos were indeed put into a single list, grouped by wheel arrangement.

In the style of the time, the numbering of both the existing GWR stock and the absorbed fleet was somewhat jumbled and numbered wherever there was a gap, although Churchward had given this up some 20 years beforehand and started numbering classes in batches, well ahead. So the GWR in their lower numbers had a random scatter remaining of older locos. The absorbed locos were just then placed, in that single list sequence, in every gap, from 1 to well over 1000, filling them all in. Thus the ex-Taff Vale 0-6-2T locos came to be placed in gaps in the 300 series, still part occupied by various GWR 0-6-0ST tanks and 0-6-0 locos. They weren't even done in build sequence, but in the original Taff Vale number sequence, and those which had been in a logically numbered group were broken up by remaining GWR locos.

That was done for those companies absorbed at the start of 1923. Through the year various both former older GWR and former Welsh company locos were withdrawn, and then further companies were taken over. They started again, a new single list and then slotted in to the gaps. Which is why it all ended up a right mixture.

An interesting oddity are the two locomotives the GWR took over from the Corris Railway in 1929. As their CR numbers did not duplicate any extant GWER loco they kept them. They also survived the 1946 renumbering and, like all GWR locos, kept their numbers at Nationalisation. They were then bought by a private company, and it so happened that their existing numbers corresponded to the next two numbers available in that company's fleet, and they have been the Tallyllyn's Nos 3 and 4 ever since, having kept the same numbers through three changes of ownership.
They were just fortunate in this; numbers 3 and 4 were vacant in 1923 and got assigned to two Barry Railway 0-4-4T tanks, withdrawn themselves in 1929 just months before the GWR bought out the Corris, not so much for the railway as for the bus services they were running from Machynlleth by then - services which were then reorganised into the various regional bus companies, the Corris routes ending up with Crosville, which was ironically half owned not by the GWR but by the LMS.
 
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