The History of the class J36 0-6-0 steam locomotives
In 1888 Matthew Holmes of the North British Railway introduced an 18-inch cylinder class of 0-6-0 which was built in small batches until 1900. Most were built at the NBR's own works at Cowlairs, but one batch of 15 was produced at Neilson & Co and another batch of 14 at Sharp, Stewart & Co. In total 168 were built. They were rebuilt with slightly larger boilers and side window cabs between 1913 and 1923.
In the First World War 25 engines, which had been already rebuilt, were sent to France and on return were named after famous places and military leaders of that conflict. One of these was no. 673 "Maude", which was subsequently preserved. The rest of the class were not named except much later for no. 65311 which was unofficially named "Haig".
All the engines survived until grouping in 1923, but one (no. 676 "Reims") was withdrawn in 1926 due to an acccident.
However in 1931 general withdrawal began with no. 9672 (part of the same batch as "Maude" and numbered just before it!). After this there were steady withdrawals throughout the 1930's. These withdrawals affected the earlier built engines. Only one of the first 10 engines built survived this period. This latter engine (BR no. 65210) along with five others was withdrawn in 1939 but these were quickly re-instated due to the onset of the Second World War. Two of the re-instated engines (including no. 65210) survived until 1962. Clearly if the war had not intervened the general withdrawal of this class would have continued. However, as can be seen from the graph above very few were withdrawn in the early 1940's (more).