Little 1435 , seen here in 1961 at Oxford Depot had been one of no less than eight of her class allocated down at Exeter in the mid 'fifties , that Motive Power Depot sharing the distinction with Gloucester Horton Road of having the largest allocation of " 1400's " on their respective books at that time .
Built in 1932 these little engines performed well on the duties for which they were designed and intended , with the initial batch of seventy five being fitted with Auto Train mechanism , enabling them to work branch line services either as the leading engine or pushing from the rearmost coach , the later batch of twenty "5800's" not being so equipped .
Often known in their day as the " 4800 " class this reference dates back to the fact that when built by Swindon the initial batch were numbered 4800 to 4874 , but between 1945 and 1947 twelve of the " 2800 " heavy freight 2-8-0 class were converted to oil buring and also allocated a series of numbers in the " 4800 to 4874 " series and so the little tanks were renumbered between 1400 and 1474 to avoid duplication of numbers.