At the turn of the 20th century, the railways in British India utilised numerous classes of locomotives of differing designs, and there was an urgent need of standardisation: British Indian railways looked to non-British locomotive manufacturers to meet their motive power needs since British locomotive manufacturers could not meet them due to the varying degree of locomotive designs used by British Indian railways, generating complaints from British locomotive manufacturers.[3] This resulted in the establishment of a locomotive subcommittee of the British Engineering Standards Committee (BESC) who developed several standardised designs of locomotives between 1903[a] and 1910 in three successive reports, with the HT class being a later addition to the third report of the BESC in 1910.[4][5] This design was similar to locomotives delivered in 1921 to the Bengal Nagpur Railway (BNR), which were made using parts shared with other BESC designed locomotives.[6] The HT class had the same cylinder dimensions as the HGS/HGC class (HG (Heavy Goods) class locomotives converted to or installed new with superheating) 2-8-0 locomotives,[7] whereas the boiler was shared with the PT class (Passenger Tank)2-6-4T locomotives.[7][better source needed]
^Bhandari, R. R. "Steam in History". IRFCA website. Indian Railways Fan Club (IRFCA). Retrieved 17 November 2024. [The inability of British locomotive manufacturers to meet demand] resulted in orders being placed on German and American manufacturers and ... protest was made on behalf of the [British locomotive manufacturers] in the British Parliament.
