LB&SCR E4 Class

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32473, formerly named Birch Grove, at Stewart's Lane in 1960. This engine was subsequently preserved.

473 Birch Grove wearing LB&SCR Marsh umber livery and carrying her name her side tanks. This is historically incorrect as the umber-liveried engines carried the letters LBSC on their tanks, where earlier they had carried names.

32473 in BR lined black at Bridgnorth on the Severn Valley Railway, 13 March 2005. Compare first picture.

The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway E4 Class is a class of 0-6-2 T steam locomotive designed by Robert Billington. They were introduced in 1897 and were virtually a larger version of the E3 Class.

The E4 class were powerful for their size and were stalwarts of local passenger, freight and branch work virtually their whole lives. However, with the arrival of Diesel Multiple Units on the few branch lines to survive the Beeching Axe, the locomotive became surplus to operationl requirements in their traditional haunts. However, they were found new jobs as station pilots, most famously at London Waterloo where they bought empty carriage rakes into London Waterloo from the yards at Clapham Junction. They were also used on services such as the locally famous Lancing Belle, which ran from Brighton to the Lancing Carriage Works of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, often double headed with members of the same class or the larger E6 class.

Most of the class were withdrawn between 1958 and 1964, and one of the last in 1963 was no.32473. This was purchased by a group of preservationists and bought to the Bluebell Railway in West Sussex, where it has remained ever since, except for visits to other lines such as the Severn Valley Railway and Isle of Wight Steam Railway. The engine was withdrawn from traffic in 1971 and dismantled. Work however did not start in earnest until the 1980s and following a long overhaul, she returned to traffic in 1997 to celebrate her centenery in 1998. She was painted in LBSC Marsh Umber livery with the name Birch Grove on the side tanks, a completely non-standard livery. In 2005 she was repainted into British Railways lined black passenger livery, which is the same livery carried to date as of September 2006.