When Johnson took over as CME, the GER was so short of locomotives that he persuaded the North British Railway to let the GER have five locomotives of a class being built by the Neilson, Reid & Co for them on loan. These formed the basis of the 40 strong 'little Sharpie' (or Number 1) class, with 10 being built by Stratford Works and the other 30 by Sharp Stewart hence the nickname. The GER was working many trains on the London Tilbury and Southend Railway at this time and the Sharpies were deployed on this traffic. The last two were withdrawn in 1913.