Between 1847 and 1849, the Lancashire & Yorkshire received a total of 82 express locomotives with a 2-2-2 wheel arrangement. These date from the time of John Hawkshaw, who was not actually a locomotive designer and whose designs are not considered the most successful. There were three slightly different variants, which differed primarily in the driving wheel diameter.

One version had a wheel diameter of 5 feet 9 inches and was built 26 times at the L&YR plants in Miles Platting. 17 of the same design came from William Fairbairn. Six and four respectively of another version with a wheel diameter of 5 feet and 6 inches were made by the same manufacturers. Finally there were 29 from Bury, Curtis & Kennedy with 5 feet 10 inches.

Of the total of 82 locomotives, 69 were converted between 1867 and 1872 to a 2-4-0 wheel arrangement. Some received new cylinders with a diameter of 15.5 instead of 15 inches and a new boiler. The locomotives with the original boiler stayed in service until 1880 at the latest, and the others a few years longer.

Also known as “High-Flyers”, the Lancashire & Yorkshire class 7 locomotives were among the first Atlantics in Britain. Their nickname came from the high-pitched boiler that lay above the 7 ft 3 in high driving wheels. Aspinall had developed them to get a more powerful replacement for the existing 4-4-0 and 4-2-2 locomotives. As with Ivatt, this wheel arrangement was chosen to accommodate a larger, albeit narrow, firebox. 

At the time of their introduction, they had the largest boiler of any British steam locomotive and reached high average speeds with the relatively light trains. While No. 1417's alleged speed of 117 mph is highly questionable, No. 1392 likely actually reached 100 mph with a five-car train on a trial run in 1899.

After one of the locos was the first in Britain to be fitted with an early superheater, five others were also fitted with it, but this was later removed. After the grouping, they were the only 4-4-2 tender locomotives on the LMS and were grouped into power class 2P. The withdrawals took place between 1926 and 1934.

Directly after his appointment as superintendent of the Lancashire & Yorkshire, William Barton Wright designed the class 25 as a standard goods locomotive. Between 1876 and 1887, different commercial manufacturers and the LYR's own Miles Platting workshops produced a total of 280 of these locomotives also called “Ironclads”. The first 72 had a smaller boiler than the remaining 208.

Between 1891 and 1900, 230 were rebuilt to class 23 saddle tank locomotives. At the LMS, the non-rebuilt locomotives were classed in power class 2F. Withdrawals commenced in 1930, but 23 managed to survive into BR ownership. The last ones were withdrawn in 1959. The only non-rebuilt locomotive that was preserved is BR 52044, former LYR 957 and now running on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway. Class 23 No. 752 is now running on the East Lancashire Railway, carrying the fictitious BR No. 51456.

Hoy developed a heavy tank locomotive for heavy passenger trains on routes with many stops and gradients of more than two percent. With three coupled axles and a wheel diameter of 5 feet 8 inches, good acceleration and high speed should be achieved at the same time. They had a scoop device to fill up the water tanks while driving. The wheel flanges on the second coupled axle had to be removed later due to wear and tear on the rails. Since this brought new problems, they were put into shunting service as early as 1913. Because they were not suitable for this either, they were retired between 1920 and 1926.

George Hughes produced his first class 30 locomotive by rebuiding a class 30 locomotive from his predecessor Aspinall to a four-cylinder compound engine. Ten more were created in this form. Other locomotives with two cylinders and simple steam expansion, which were built from 1910 onwards, were also assigned to class 30. 29 of these had been converted from Aspinall's class 30 and 40 more had Hughes built new at Horwich. Later they received superheaters so that they were similar to the class 31. They were assigned to power class 6F by the LMS. The last engines survived the formation of British Railways and were retired in 1951.

Since the Great Northern's L1, it had become the fashion in Britain to procure very heavy tank locomotives without a leading axle for jobs requiring high tractive effort or rapid acceleration. The poorer running smoothness at higher speeds and the shorter range compared to a tender locomotive could be ignored here. While the L1 was built for the rapid acceleration of commuter trains, the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway's Class 32 was intended to be used for heavy shunting or hauling freight trains. The area of application was primarily in the port of Liverpool, which had short, steep gradients. George Hughes, chief engineer of the L&YR, based the development to a certain extent on the class 30 D tender locomotive of his predecessor Aspinall.

The diameter of the boiler was increased by a full foot while still sticking to the saturated steam principle. Considerations had come to the conclusion that the superheaters of the time did not work with full efficiency in shunting operations and that the additional complexity would therefore not be expedient. The wheelbase of the coupled axles was increased, which required the four middle coupled wheels to be designed without flanges. The cylinders were very large for a locomotive without a compound engine and powered the second axle. They provided a pulling force of about 34,000 pounds. 

The last built engine, No. 1505

Five examples were ordered, all delivered in March and April 1908. Their use was initially planned on the shunting yards in Aintree with humps, but this was ultimately not possible. The reason for this was that some chassis parts damaged the conductor rails attached there. Ultimately they were stationed at Accrington and Agecroft and used for heavy shunting and pushing work. After the grouping of 1923, the L&YR belonged to the LMS and there there was no great need for small classes with a few vehicles. Therefore, they were retired between 1925 and 1929 when the maintenance deadlines for the boilers expired.

In William Barton Wright's effort to unify the Lancashire & Yorkshire fleet with a smaller number of locomotive classes, the class 629 was developed as a 4-4-0 express locomotive. The first eight came in 1880 from Sharp, Stewart & Co., where most of the development took place. They had a driving wheel diameter of six feet (1,829 mm), which meant that even topographically demanding lines were no problem. Compared to the previous 2-4-0 locomotives, smaller tenders initially had to be used because the turntables were too short.

Other batches came from Sharp, Kitson and Vulcan. The last 16 were delivered by Vulcan in 1887 under Aspinall, bringing the total to 110. These had a longer wheelbase between the driving axles, a different type of suspension and smaller bogie wheels. All but two of the class 629 locomotives were retired by 1914. These two went first to the LNWR and then to the LMS, where they were decommissioned in 1930. Aspinall used class 629 as the basis for his classes 2 and 3.

Based on the class 8 “Dreadnought”, George Hughes developed a tank locomotive that was also intended for express service. Thanks to the trailing bogie, it now had a 4-6-4T wheel arrangement. The boiler with Belpaire firebox basically resembled the original, but was somewhat lighter. There were no changes to the 75-inch (1,905 mm) diameter driving wheels and the four 16.5-inch (419 mm) diameter cylinders.

Although they had been developed for the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, the ten locomotives were directly delivered to the LMS in 1924 and were designated class 5P. They were also known as “Dreadnought Tanks”. However, due to their heavy weight, their possible uses were limited, so that they could only be used between Manchester and Blackpool. A further order for 20 was therefore converted into class 8. The tank locomotives were withdrawn from service between 1938 and 1941.