And class 11 was even earlier (1945 says Wikipedia) as this was the LMS class from which the 08s were derived.

I believe that the class numbering system was based roughly on power, so Class 01 would be the least powerful ...

James
As it happens I am the webmaster of the Heritage Shunters Trust www.heritageshunters.co.uk
We aim to preserve, for future generations to enjoy, at least one of every class of shunter that ever worked on British Railways. We have examples of every class with the exception of Class 09/10/12/13.
We will never get a Class 12 however because there is only one still in existence based at the Spa Valley Railway and sadly the three Class 13's were cut up before any could be preserved. We are working on acquiring a Class 09 and Class 10. If you require any further information about any of our locomotives, preservation work or require any information please don't hesitate to get in touch either by using this forum or the HST email address from the website and I will reply as soon as possible.
Regards
Andrew Wilson (Brillo)
Webmaster HST www.heritageshunters.co.uk

Welcome to the site Brillo,

Hope you will continue to post and keep us up to date with your trust as well as post on other topics.

Best wishes for Christmas and 2009.

John H-T.

Hello Brillo, welcome to the Railway Forum. Do you intend trying to get steam shunters as well. A bit more difficult I would think as too many have been lost for ever.

Thanks for the welcome and good wishes.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone on the forum.
John H-T - I visited the EVR last year and must say that the 03's and 37075 looked superb in their sparkling blue livery (my era was the early 1980's!). I must say I was extremely impresssed with the line, rolling stock and your friendly, knowledgeable staff. I will probably visit again in 2009.
In answer to DSY011's question - I don't think that there are many steam shunters left however we are primarily concerned with diesel shunters. We also have a few industrial (not ex-BR) shunters in the collection. We do have steam 3183 (on loan to the NRM at Shildon) and 3188 (at Rowsley) and if any others were made available for sale we would consider them rather than letting go to the scrapman.
The problem with small engine preservation is that most enthusiasts contribute to the big engine societies (tractors, grids etc) and forget, or ignore, the small engine societies.
We have a small but loyal membership of about 80 individuals but only a handful of people who actually work on the engines and we don't have oodles of cash to throw about due to the low membership figures. That is why restoration takes so long and everything is in a queue. We do hope to have D2139, 12061 and D2866 running in 2009 and work can then start on the next ones in the line up.
Regards
Brillo

Brillo,

The EVR has a Home fleet gala Weekend 28th February/1st March when hopefully both 03s and Class 20 D8001. Disappointingly from your point of view they will all be running in Green.

They will be supported by the Railwy's DMU fleet including "Iris."

I will be there both days.

Hope to see you then.

Best wishes,

John H-T.

Syd we are busy overhauling one of our Andrew Barclay 0-4-0Ts. Have a good Christmas.

Thanks for the reply Brillo, I agree with you about most enthusiasts contribute to the big engine societies. I on the other hand like the small hard working locos, be they steam or diesel, but with a slight bend towards steam as you can see from my model locos. Unfortunately I am not very good at building my own locos from kits so I don't have any that were not RTR.

Thank you Brillo, very informative and helpful. And welcome to the forum.

I always assumed (clearly incorrectly) that the classes were purely chronological.

Thanks again

James

Hanson has a 03 and a 08 still in service in Wales