FR No. 1 to 4
| FR No. 1 to 4 | |
|---|---|
 Prince in 2006
|
|
| Number: | 4th |
| Manufacturer: | George England |
| Year of construction (s): | 1863-64 |
| Type : | B n2t + T |
| Gauge : | 597 mm |
| Total wheelbase: | 1,372 mm |
| Service mass: | approx. 8 t |
| Friction mass: | approx. 8 t |
| Wheel set mass : | approx. 4 t |
| Driving wheel diameter: | 610 mm |
| Control type : | Allan |
| Cylinder diameter: | 203 mm |
| Piston stroke: | 305 mm |
| Boiler overpressure: | 96, N / cm² |
| Grate area: | 0.37 m² |
| Evaporation heating surface: | 35 m² |
| Water supply: | 1.1 m³ |
| Train brake: | Suction air brake |
| The technical data apply to the original condition of the multiple converted locomotives. | |
The locomotives no. 1 to 4 of the Ffestiniog Railway (FR) built in 1863 and 1864 were the first locomotives on the horse-powered railway. They are considered to be the first ever successfully used narrow-gauge locomotives in line service . The locomotives supplied by the manufacturer George England were named The Prince , The Princess , Mountaineer and Palmerston . To distinguish them from the slightly larger locomotives No. 5 and 6, they are also referred to as "Small Englands", "Small England engines" or similar.
With the exception of Mountaineer , which was retired in 1879, the locomotives still exist today, two of them in working order, making them one of the oldest regularly used steam locomotives.
Origin and technology
Up until the 1850s, steam locomotives on narrow-gauge railroads, especially those with such a small gauge (597 mm), were only used occasionally in industrial companies. However, these railways were not comparable to the Ffestiniog Railway in terms of route length and inclination. When the Ffestiniog Railway threatened to compete with new standard-gauge lines in the mining region around Blaenau Ffestiniog , its managing director, Charles Easton Spooner, commissioned the designer Charles M. Holland to develop a suitable locomotive.
After various rejected designs, the first locomotive was built in the George England factory in 1863, followed by three more by March 1864. The order in which they were delivered and how they were originally numbered is unclear today. Today Princess is number 1, Prince is number 2 and Palmerston is number 4. Mountaineer , number 3, was probably the first locomotive to be delivered.
The locomotives are a combination of a tank locomotive and a tender locomotive : The water supply is stored in tanks on the locomotive, the coal supply on a two-axle tender. The locomotives have an internal sheet metal frame with an external subframe. The main frame begins behind the cylinder block and ends in front of the standing boiler so that it could be made as large as possible. There are subframes between the standing tank and the tender coupling as well as in front of the cylinder block, so that a significant part of the tensile force was transferred from the standing tank. This was a weak point in the design, and the two locomotives still in use today, especially Prince , were modified on this point. The locomotives were also designed without a steam dome . During test drives with Mountaineer in the summer of 1863, however, it turned out to be unusable. Accordingly, the boilers on site were retrofitted with steam domes by staff without any experience with locomotives in the previous Perde railway workshop, Boston Lodge .
The cylinders are arranged horizontally outside the frame and are supplied with steam via an internal Allan control . The two cylinder blocks are screwed together in the middle of the vehicle.
The machines were designed to pull a train of 40 long tons (40.6 t) at 8 mph (12.9 km / h) up an incline of 12.5 ‰.
Use and modifications
The task of the locomotives was to pull the empty wagons uphill for the slate transport , something that horses had done until then. The capacity of the route has been increased significantly thanks to the faster uphill drives that are now possible. The trains continued to roll downhill with the help of gravity - initially also the passenger trains introduced in 1865. Later the passenger trains and mixed trains going down into the valley were also transported by locomotives, which were equipped with suction air brakes from 1893 onwards. The pure slate trains, on the other hand, rolled down into the valley on their own until the 1930s.
In 1867 the four locomotives were supplemented by two more, which were constructed very similarly, but slightly larger. They were given the numbers 5 and 6 and are referred to as "Large Englands".
In 1877 the heavily worn Mountaineer was taken out of service and officially retired in 1879 - as the first locomotive on the Ffestiniog Railway. Parts of her, e.g. B. the chimney and the wheel tires were used as spare parts for the remaining locomotives.
Between 1880 and 1882, the three remaining locomotives each received a ballast weight that increased the friction weight to around 10 t. This lay between the two side tanks across the boiler and looked like a saddle tank. The locomotives were rebuilt several times between 1888 and 1895: The side tanks and the ballast weight have now been replaced by a voluminous saddle tank, as the "large" class had already received upon delivery. In addition, the locomotives received a closed driver's cab and the cylindrical sand containers typical of the FR . In addition, these three locomotives received new boilers, newly designed steel frames, wheels and cylinders as part of the renovations. The machines were so extensively reconstructed that they were practically new builds using a few original parts from the 1860s. At this point, the names The Prince and The Princess were shortened to Prince and Princess .
Since these modifications, the locomotives have had their current appearance and - apart from the smaller wheelbase - hardly differed from the "large" locomotives.
Palmerston served as a work locomotive in 1923 in the construction of the Welsh Highland Railway, which was linked to the Ffestiniog Railway . Prince pulled the first train there in 1923 between Dinas and Porthmadog and Princess pulled the first train in the opposite direction. Because of the shortage of locomotives at the WHR, all three locomotives were used there regularly until the 1930s.
On August 1, 1946, Princess pulled the last train before the FR (temporary) cessation of operations.
Museum operation
In 1955 the Ffestiniog Railway was put back into operation as a museum railway.
Prince had been out of service in 1946 due to the expiry of the boiler deadline and was put back into service in August 1955 with a new boiler that had been procured from the "old" FR - as the first steam locomotive of the "new" FR. The locomotive has had a superheater since 1980 , which can be recognized from the outside by an extended smoke chamber.
Palmerston had last served as a stationary boiler, and parts of the locomotive had been used for Prince in 1955 . At the end of the 1960s, the rusted remains of the locomotive were considered no longer restorable, but in 1974 a group came together to take on this task. In 1993 the locomotive went back into service with a new boiler, new cylinders and new wheels.
Like all the locomotives used on the "old" FR until recently, Princess was in a comparatively poor condition and was not restored. After a superficial repair, it was exhibited as a monument locomotive in various places outdoors from 1963 before it was brought to the museum in the former freight shed of Porthmadog train station in 1981. Today the station restaurant Spooner's Bar is located in these rooms , where the locomotive (without tender) was still on display. At the end of 2012, Princess was temporarily taken out of the bar in order to be able to serve as a “traveling exhibit” on the occasion of the Ffestiniog Railway's 150th anniversary of steam. For this purpose she was repainted and got her tender back.
Prince and Palmerston are still operational today and are mainly used for special and charter trips, with Prince being the world's oldest regularly used steam locomotive, according to FR. Both locomotives have also visited the newly built Welsh Highland Railway on various occasions, where Prince pulled the opening train for the Waunfawr – Rhyd Ddu section in July 2003 - with Prince Charles in the driver's cab.
In September 2019, the Mountaineer Locomotive Ltd. the planned construction of a replica of the "lost" Mountaineer, which is to be built in its original state with water tanks on the side. At the start of the £ 250,000 project, the first completed parts of the boiler were presented.
literature
- James IC Boyd, The Festiniog Railway, Volume Two, Locomotives and Rolling Stock, Oakwood Press, 1975, ISBN 0-85361-168-8
- Chris Jones, Peter Dennis: Little Giants - A history of the Ffestiniog Railway's pre-revival locomotives, their mentors, manufacture and maintenance . Lightmoor Press, Lydney, Gloucestershire 2018, ISBN 978-1-911038-43-6 (English).
- PJG Ransomware: Narrow Gauge Steam. Its origins and world-wide development . Yeovil, Oxford 1996, ISBN 0-86093-533-7 .
- Dan Quine: The George England locomotives , Flexiscale, 2013
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jones, Dennis: Little Giants, pp. 35 ff.
- ^ Ransom, Narrow Gauge Steam. Its origins and world-wide development, pp. 70-91
- ^ Jones, Dennis: Little Giants, pp. 70-77
- ↑ According to other data, 50 tons at 10 mph
- ^ Article on the FR website on the occasion of preparations for the 150th anniversary of steam
- ↑ Article on Princess in Festipedia
- ↑ Dr. Ben Fisher: The Royal Inauguration Train, July 30th 2003. Retrieved July 10, 2010 .
- ^ Mountaineer Locomotive Ltd .: Would you like to help create a historic steam locomotive? Retrieved November 12, 2019 .
