The United States Army Transportation Corps S160 Class is a class of 2-8-0 Consolidation steam locomotive, designed for heavy freight work in Europe during World War II. A total of 2,120 were built and they worked on railroads across much of the world, including Africa, Asia, all of Europe and South America.
800 locomotives were constructed in 1942/3 in 13 batches and shipped to South Wales and dispatched from the GWR locomotive depot at Newport, Ebbw Junction, the first 43 locomotives were transferred to the LNER Doncaster Works for completion, and later running in over the East Coast Main Line. This started a pattern whereby each of the four British railway companies eventually deployed a total of 400 S160's under the guise of "running in," but factually replacing damaged stock and increasing the capacity of the British railway system to allow for shipping of military pre-invasion equipment and troops.
The eventual deployment of S160's were: 174 to the GWR 168 to the LNER 50 to the LMS Railway and 6 to the SR. The second batch of 400 S160's were prepared for storage by USATC personnel at the Great Western's Ebbw Junction locomotive depot in the immediate run-up to D-Day. After the D-Day invasion of Normandy, the locomotives deployed across Britain again began to be collected and be refurbished at Ebbw Junction in preparation for shipment to Europe.
Several survive, we only list those that have returned to the UK in this list.