 Rather than have all three cylinders driving a single axle Thompson adopted divided drive with the middle cylinder driving the first pair of driving wheels and the outside cylinders the middle pair.However, In order to retain the original three connecting rods of the same length, the outside cylinders were set back behind the bogie, giving the locomotives an ungainly appearance.Thompson also removed the Gresley conjugated valve gear and instead fitted independent sets of Walschaerts valve gear to each cylinder.