LSWR Beattie 298 Class

The LSWR Beattie 298 Class is an alternative designation sometimes applied to the celebrated Beattie Well Tanks — Joseph Hamilton Beattie's Victorian 2-4-0WT locomotives built from 1851 for the London and South Western Railway's suburban services and subsequently famous for their extraordinary longevity on the Wenford Bridge china clay branch in Cornwall. The 298 designation refers to the last LSWR running number series assigned to the surviving well tanks before the Southern Railway era.

See the main Beattie Well Tanks entry for the full history of this celebrated class, including the story of the three survivors that worked the Wenford Bridge branch at over ninety years old in 1962, and the preservation of all three examples — Nos. 30585 and 30587 at the Bodmin and Wenford Railway, and No. 30586 at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre.