For the increased weight of express trains at the turn of the century, Johnson developed the class 3 with the 4-4-0 wheel arrangement. It was the first locomotive on the Midland Railway to have a Belpaire firebox, which increased its heating surface and therefore also power. Between 1900 and 1905, 80 were built, of which the last 15 received a slightly larger boiler.

Between 1913 and 1926, 73 of the locomotives received a new standard boiler with superheater. The remaining seven remained in use without superheaters until 1925 or 1926. Number 714 was destroyed in the Charfield accident in October 1928, in which 16 people died and 41 were injured. The decommissioning of the remaining ones began in 1935 and was not completed until 1953, when the last ones had already been taken over by the British Railways.