Irish Free State and Republic of Ireland
The railways wholly in the Irish Free State were merged into one private company — Great Southern Railways — in 1925. The GSR renumbered all the broad gauge locomotives in to one series with the former Great Southern and Western Railway locomotives retaining their old number. The GSR had two parallel classification systems – a numerical system which was the lowest number of a locomotive in that class, and an alpha-numrical which used a letter to indicate the wheel arrangement, and a number, with the lowest number given to the most powerful class with that wheel arrangement. The latter system was only used by Inchicore Works for accounting purposes, while the former was used by locomotive crews and the drawing office at Inchicore Works.
| Letter | Wheel Arrangement |
Letter | Wheel Arrangement |
Letter | Wheel Arrangement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 4-8-0 | F | 2-4-2 | K | 2-6-0 |
| B | 4-6-0 | G | 2-4-0 | L | 0-4-2 |
| C | 4-4-2 | H | 0-6-4 | M | 0-4-0 |
| D | 4-4-0 | I | 0-6-2 | N | 2-2-2 |
| E | 0-4-4 | J | 0-6-0 | P | 2-6-2 |
Note that narrow gauge locomotive classes included the letter N after the prefix letter, letter C was also used for Bo-Bo diesels, and that letters B, C, D, F, J, and K were used for the same wheel arrangements by the London and North Eastern Railway, while E and G changed places.
In 1945, the GSR became part of Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ), which was then nationalised. CIÉ settled on a policy of replacing steam with diesel locomotives, a process that was completed in 1962.
Read more about this topic: Steam Locomotives Of Ireland
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