Daniel Gooch standard gauge locomotives

The Daniel Gooch standard gauge locomotives comprise several classes of locomotives designed by Daniel Gooch, Superintendent of Locomotive Engines for the Great Western Railway (GWR) from 1837 to 1864.

In 1854 the GWR absorbed two standard gauge lines, the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway and the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway to become the GWR's Northern Division. Consequently, from then until his retirement in 1864, Daniel Gooch (the company's Superintendent of Locomotive Engines, a post he had occupied since 1837), although a passionate advocate of the GWR's original broad gauge, of necessity also became responsible for designing standard gauge locomotives for the new Northern Division. From 1858 the construction of standard gauge engines started at the newly enlarged Northern Division Works at Stafford Road, Wolverhampton; these were designed by Joseph Armstrong, the Wolverhampton Locomotive Superintendent that the GWR had inherited along with the S&BR.

Alongside these Armstrong locomotives, several other standard gauge locomotive classes were built during these years under the aegis of Gooch himself, either at the Great Western's principal works at Swindon, or else by outside firms, Swindon and Wolverhampton between them not yet having sufficient capacity for all the necessary new construction. Though these engines were mostly designed by Gooch himself, sometimes the influence of Joseph Armstrong may be evident.

The classes concerned are as follows:

Nos. 57-68, 12 0-6-0 freight engines designed by Gooch built at Swindon in 1855-6. They were typical Gooch engines, resembling his broad gauge Standard Goods, suitably narrowed for the standard gauge. On delivery they had to be transported to Wolverhampton on specially constructed broad gauge wagons. Between 1873 and 1890 all were "renewed" at Wolverhampton - that is, built afresh with minimal use of parts from the original engines - and in 1890-91 William Dean added, for some reason, three more to the class, as Nos. 316-8. With a few exceptions the class remained in the Northern Division, and the last was withdrawn in 1927. Nos. 60 and 67 ran between 1876/7 and 1886 as saddle tank engines, having been renewed in that form by George Armstrong.

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