The 69 Class designed by William Dean for the Great Western Railway

Great Western Railway

The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...

 consisted of eight 2-4-0 tender locomotives, constructed at Swindon Works in 1895-7. Nominally they were renewals of eight engines of the 2-2-2 wheel arrangement that carried the same numbers, these themselves having been renewals by George Armstrong

George Armstrong (engineer)

George Armstrong was in charge of standard gauge steam locomotives for the Great Western Railway at Stafford Road Works, Wolverhampton from 1864 to 1897...

 at Wolverhampton of 2-2-2s designed by Daniel Gooch

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 from 1837 to 1864.-History:...

 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 6'8" driving wheels and 17" x 24" cylinders. 2-4-0s, 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 They were not long-lived as 2-4-0s, the last being withdrawn in 1918.

Source

• F. J. Tabor (1956), Locomotives of the Great Western Railway, part four: Six-coupled Tender Engines, RCTS