larger facility on the other side of the main line. This was closed to steam locomotives in 1962, but used to service diesels until 1968. Thereafter it was used for the Ashford Steam Centre for a period, but has now been demolished. Locomotive building at Ashford In 1853 the Locomotive Superintendent James I. Cudworth built the first of ten 'Hastings' class 2-4-0 locomotives there. In 1855 these were followed by two freight engines. (An unusual feature of these was a dual firebox, each side fired alternately.) Over the next twenty years, Cudworth built 53 freight locomotives at Ashford and around 80 larger ones with six foot driving wheels, plus the first eight of his sixteen express passenger locos, the 'Mails', with seven foot drivers. He also produced four classes of 0-6-0 tank locomotives. In 1878 James Stirling, the brother of Patrick Stirling of the Great Northern Railway took over and introduced a deal of standardisation. He believed in the benefits of the bogie and produced a class of 4-4-0 with six foot drivers and his '0' class freight with five foot drivers. He also produced over a hundred 0-4-4 tank engines, and in 1898 the 4-4-0 'B' Class. The first Locomotive, Carriage & Wagon Superintendent for the South Eastern and Chatham Railway was H.S. Wainwright who produced a series of successful and elegant designs at Ashford. Wainwright's tender engines built at Ashford included 0-6-0 freight locomotives of the 'C' class, and the 4-4-0 passenger engines of the 'D' and 'E' classes. His tank engines built at the works included the versatile and long-lived 0-4-4 'H' class, the larger 0-6-4 'J' class and the diminutive 0-6-0 tank engines of the 'P' class. Wainwright was followed by Richard Maunsell, who introduced the ultimately unsuccessful 'K' class 2-6-4 mixed traffic tank locomotives (which were later rebuilt into 2-6-0 tender locomotives), and the useful 'N' class 2-6-0 mixed traffic locomotives in 1917. However, more of the 'N' class locomotives were produced at the works, and parts for 'K' class locos that were assembled by Armstrong Whitworth of Newcastle upon Tyne. In 1942 the works also built twenty of the Bulleid 'Q1' class 0-6-0, the remainder being built at Brighton Works. During the later war years the works also built a number of the LMS 8F type 2-8-0 freight locomotives for the War Department. The last of the 639 steam locomotives built there was LMSR