GWR River Class

The 69 Class designed by William Dean for the Great Western Railway consisted of eight tender locomotives, constructed at Swindon Works between 1895 and 1897. Nominally they were renewals of eight engines that carried the same numbers, these themselves having been renewals by George Armstrong at Wolverhampton of s designed by Daniel Gooch as long ago as 1855.

In truth the Dean engines were in effect new engines, the only re-used parts being some recently fitted boilers of Swindon pattern. They had 6 ft driving wheels and 17 x cylinders. s, being mixed-traffic engines, were not usually named on the GWR, but all of the 69s did carry names, as follows:


 * 69 Avon
 * 70 Dart
 * 71 Dee
 * 72 Exe
 * 73 Isis
 * 74 Stour
 * 75 Teign
 * 76 Wye

The "Rivers" were originally allocated to Oxford, and later moved to the Bristol division. They were not long-lived as s, the last being withdrawn in 1918.