 Hughes was an advocate of superheating and used it when rebuilding the 7'3" Class 4 express 4-4-0s, fitting Schmidt superheaters and piston valves, along with Walschaerts valve gear.Despite this, he recognised that an intermittently worked shunting engine such as the 0-8-2Ts would not allow the superheater elements to reach their optimum working temperature, and so retained a simpler saturated boiler.Other detail fittings included vacuum brakes and oval buffers, to avoid locking of buffer heads when working around tight curves with the engine's long overhang at each end.