The C14 design was born out of desperation as the earlier railmotors designed by the Drummond team had fallen a long way short of expectations for many reasons which don't form part of this discourse. The outcome of that failure was a side tank design based around the 2-2-0 wheel arrangement which, itself, was a recipe for problems. That proved to be the case as they were very prone to wheel slip not only on starting but also at speed, relatively speaking, as they had driving wheels only 3' in diameter. That was not their only problem as Drummond had included a water tube arrangement in their design that he had neatly tucked away inside the tanks which, convenient though it might have been from a design point of view, made them totally inaccessible for routine maintenance. The design also suffered from even more obvious problems insofar as they were underpowered and lacked sufficient coal carrying capacity for any but the shortest of tours of duty. The overall design was, however, aesthetically quite pleasing with the relatively large side tanks giving the side elevation a very square but balanced look which was counterbalanced by an elegant chimney and dome.

Ten examples of the original 2-2-0T design were built between September 1906 and January 1907 but were largely redundant by 1913. The decision was taken to rebuild NN°743 & N°745 (see the accompanying table below) as 0-4-0Ts and the opportunity was taken during that process to dispense with the awkward water tube design. The remaining locos of the original 2-2-0T design continued to see sporadic service during WW1 but without their allotted railmotor coaches except for N°741 and N°743 which were temporarily employed as complete units for a wartime service linking Bournemouth West and the cordite factory at Holton Heath. In November 1916 the LSWR was approached by the War Office who were seeking light locomotives and they subsequently purchased six of the 2-2-0T versions in 1917 and N°743, which was one of the rebuilt locos as tabulated below. NN°741 and N°744 gained a fortuitous new lease of life when they were leased by the Admiralty in 1917 for dockyard shunting and it is that pair that were subsequently returned to the LSWR and were subsequently rebuilt as 0-4-0T engines with long working lives ahead of them. The reason why three of the class were placed on the duplicates list was that they occupied numbers allocated to the new N15 class.

N°745 was rebuilt as 0-4-0T an engine in April 1913, then became Service Department loco 77s in 1927 and eked out an existence at Redbridge sleeper depot until 1959, a function from which it never strayed except for periodic overhauls and a short period of work at Southampton Town Quay in 1958/1959. Nos 741 and 744 were rebuilt in 1922/23 respectively and took up duties at Southampton Docks for the rest of their working lives. N°741 became BR N°30588 whilst N°744 became BR N°30589 and both were allocated to Eastleigh until their withdrawal from active service in 1957.

There are two unusual facts relating to the three survivors. Firstly, with no spare boilers available, they carried their original boilers for their entire working lives. And secondly, N°30589 distinguished herself by being the only member of the class to haul a passenger train after their railmotor days had ended when it hauled a two coach motor set along the Bishops Waltham branch as part of an RCTS railtour on 14th June 1952.