The Book of the H15 and S15 4-6-0s

In 2008, Irwell Press published The Book Of The King Arthur 4-6-0s, to complete a sequence of three volumes on the named express locomotives of the pre-second world war Southern Railway. In this volume, we will look at the mixed traffic and freight versions of the King Arthur, which the Southern classified H15 and S15. Whilst the Hi 5s were all basically LSWR locomotives. although the last fifteen were built or rebuilt by the Southern, the S15s, like the King Arthur's, were the products of two very different groups of locomotive designers. All three classes were initially produced from the Eastleigh based design team of Robert Urie the last Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London & South Western Railway. All were solidly built, easily maintained and, once initial problems with heated axleboxes had been overcome, reliable.