The largest purchaser of the RODs was the London and North Eastern Railway which bought 273 between late 1923 and early 1927 to supplement its 130 existing GCR Class 8K locos.
[11] Thirteen RODs were purchased direct from the UK War Department in the 1920s by J & A Brown and shipped to Australia, for use on the privately owned Richmond Vale Railway.
[12] In 1927, the LMS purchased 75 ex-Railway Operating Division ROD 2-8-0s from George Cohen and Armstrong Disposals Corporation, primarily for their tenders, which were used for various ex-LNWR locomotives.
Thirty engines were sold, minus their tenders, to Armstrong Whitworth, who exported most of them to China as Chinese Government Railways KD4.
Iraqi State Railways had six examples and designated them class RD: in March 1967 at least one remained in storage at Shalchiyah works outside Baghdad awaiting disposal.
[14][15] Some remained in service in the Suez Canal Zone until 1955, then passed into Egyptian State Railways stock until withdrawal in 1961 and were all scrapped.
[16] J & A Brown, a coal mining company in the Hunter Valley area of New South Wales, Australia, bought thirteen RODs to replace the older locomotives used on their Richmond Vale railway line.
The first three arrived complete on the SS Boorara in February 1926 and were unloaded in Sydney and hauled to their home base at Hexham.
In late 1927 the rest arrived in crates on Brown's new ship the SS Minmi on its maiden voyage to Hexham.