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Description
The Southern Railway V Class, or "Schools" represented the peak in the line of development of the British 4-4-0, and was the last class to be designed of such wheel arrangement, and it also held the distinction of being the most powerful 4-4-0 in all of Europe. In effect, it was a scaled down version of the larger Lord Nelson Class 4-6-0s with additional elements of the King Arthur 4-6-0s as well, specially designed for intermediate passenger work on secondary and weight restricted routes. Forty were built under the auspices of Richard Maunsell at Eastleigh works from 1930 to 1935 and were named after public schools within the domain of the Southern Railway. Because of their aforementioned smaller size, they were used on a variety of restrictive routes other types were not permitted on, such as the Hastings to Tonbridge line in Kent and East Sussex. All of the class survived into Nationalization, but were withdrawn by December of 1962. Three members of the class, numbers 925 Cheltenham, 926 Repton, and 928 Stowe are preserved, with two of them currently in operation and Repton currently being mainline certified.

Description
The Southern Railway V Class, or "Schools" represented the peak in the line of development of the British 4-4-0, and was the last class to be designed of such wheel arrangement, and it also held the distinction of being the most powerful 4-4-0 in all of Europe. In effect, it was a scaled down version of the larger Lord Nelson Class 4-6-0s with additional elements of the King Arthur 4-6-0s as well, specially designed for intermediate passenger work on secondary and weight restricted routes. Forty were built under the auspices of Richard Maunsell at Eastleigh works from 1930 to 1935 and were named after public schools within the domain of the Southern Railway. Because of their aforementioned smaller size, they were used on a variety of restrictive routes other types were not permitted on, such as the Hastings to Tonbridge line in Kent and East Sussex. All of the class survived into Nationalization, but were withdrawn by December of 1962. Three members of the class, numbers 925 Cheltenham, 926 Repton, and 928 Stowe are preserved, with two of them currently in operation and Repton currently being mainline certified.