LBSCR Craven

The LBSCR Craven 0-6-0 class refers to inside-cylinder goods tender locomotives built for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway under the superintendency of John Chester Craven from around 1860, providing the LBSCR with basic 0-6-0 goods haulage capacity for its freight operations across Sussex and Surrey. Craven was LBSCR Locomotive Superintendent from 1847 to 1869 and was responsible for a large and heterogeneous collection of locomotive types, producing a wide variety of designs with limited standardisation that reflected both the rapid expansion of the LBSCR's network and Craven's idiosyncratic engineering approach.

The LBSCR's goods traffic in this period consisted primarily of agricultural produce from the Sussex farming country, coal and general merchandise from the ports at Newhaven and Shoreham, and the building materials traffic generated by the rapid Victorian expansion of Brighton, Eastbourne, and the Sussex coastal resorts. The Craven 0-6-0 goods engines provided the workhorse freight capacity for these operations, if without any particular distinction — Craven's engines were generally adequate rather than excellent, and his successor Stroudley's verdict on the Craven fleet was famously unkind.

All Craven goods locomotives were withdrawn and replaced by Stroudley's standardised designs from 1870 onwards. None was preserved.