V-weapons vast majority aimed at London; 2,515 reached the city, killing 6,184 civilians and injuring 17,981. Croydon to the south, on the flight path of the V1s suffered severely taking 142 hits. V-2 rocket launching sites were set up by the Germans around The Hague in the Netherlands on 6 September 1944. The first was launched from here against London on 8 September 1944 and took an estimated 5 minutes to fly the 200 miles from the Hague to London where it struck at 6.43pm on 8 September on Chiswick causing thirteen casualties. As the V2 explosions came without warning, the
2-8-2 in 1946, the RSR imported fifty used United States Army Transportation Corps S118 Class locomotives, the so-called MacArthur Locomotives. Another eighteen new engines of the same Class were purchased around 1948-1949 to meet the post-war demand. The last type of Mikado steam locomotives for Thailand were seventy engines imported by SRT from Japan between 1949 and 1951, numbered 901 to 970. Of these, only Mikado no. 953 is still serviceable, even though it is no longer actively in use. The 2-8-2 wheel arrangement was rarely, but successfully, used on British rails. Sir Nigel Gresley of the London and North Eastern