Into The Twentieth Century
Over the remainder of the century, the company prospered in the face of increasing competition, supplying railways at home and abroad. By 1899 around 3000 locomotives had been built and a new limited liability company was formed, Robert Stephenson and Company Limited and the works was moved to Darlington, the first locomotive leaving the shop in 1902.
Most railways in Britain were building their own rolling stock, so most of the output was for export, from 4-4-0's for the Oudh and Rohilkund Railway to GS (4-6-0) and HS (2-8-0) classes for the Bengal Nagpur Railway. These preceded the slightly larger BESA standard designs for the Indian railways. The works built the first British 2-10-0 for the Argentine Great Western Railway in 1905.
During World War I, the company devoted itself to munitions work. However between 1917 and 1920, a large batch of ROD 2-8-0 and SNCV type 18 0-6-0 tram locomotives were ordered by the War Office for use on the continent. From then on, business was slack, for various reasons. Notable were thirty 2-6-0 mixed traffic locomotives for the GWR in 1921, a batch of thirty 0-6-0 tank engines for the LNER and five 7F 2-8-0s for the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway. In 1936 and 1937, only forty six were built, including eleven B17 class ("Sandringham") 4-6-0s for the LNER, and seven 2-6-4 passenger tank locomotives for the South Indian Railway Company.
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