Douglas Earie-Marsh will probably be best known for the popular and graceful H1 and H2 Atlantic express engines, although these were essentially Ivatt designs from the Great Northern with whom March previously worked. His fist design of Atlantic tanks the I1 and I2 classes were not at all successful performers. The I3 tanks however changed that and quickly gained an excellent reputation especially with respect to fuel economy. When used on the ‘Sunny South Special’ between Brighton and Rugby, a superheated I3 could could do the entire round trip without need for water en route or re-coaling at Rugby!
The class were very successful and when electrification of the Brighton lines started to displace them they found new jobs elsewhere. Having been built initially to the more generous Brighton loading gauge they were cut down slightly by reducing the height of the boiler mountings and rounding off of the cab roofs to work on the Eastern section, they subsequently worked further afield.
They could often could be seen on the Brighton and or Portsmouth to Cardiff services being replaced by an other railway company loco at Salisbury and between 1938 and 1943 four of the class were allocated to Salisbury itself. This gives the excuse for one to be seen from time to time on Fisherton Sarum.
My model of 2084 has been built from a Wills (now South Eastern Finecast) white metal kit in the form with the cut down cab and fittings to fit the SR composite loading gauge and is finished in my usual Bulleid post war black livery.
Did the ‘Sunny South Special’ travel to Rugby GCR or Rugby LNWR stations?
Hi Andrew the Sunny South Special was operated jointly by the LBSC and LNWR so therefore would have been Rugby LNWR.