Greig & Beadon's Patent Light Railway

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Locomotive and carriage from Greig & Beadon's Patent Light Railway
John Fowler & Co steam locomotive 'Cormorant' (factory number 5058 from 1885) with Greig & Beadon's jackshaft

The Greig & Beadon's Patent Light Railway was a patented system of narrow-gauge locomotives and cars.

history

John Fowler's narrow-gauge locomotives , because of their small wheels, were initially affected by dust and dirt because their drive was too close to the ground. In July 1880, Fowler's employees Alfred Greig and William Beadon received a patent for a locomotive with a jackshaft drive , by means of which the cylinders could be mounted further above the top of the rails. It had a very short vertical or diagonal coupling rod from the jackshaft to the rear axle below. The rod was cranked so that the valve eccentric could be mounted inside the crank. The gear arrangement used to control the speed and direction of travel of the locomotive was patented.

In South Africa , India , Australia , China , the Straits Settlements , West Indies , Hawaii and other locations, the gauge was mostly 2 to 2½ feet (610 to 762 mm ). The locomotives weighed 7 or 8 tons and could pull a load of about 80 tons at a speed of 16 km / h (10 mph). Light rail costs with the Greig system were about $ 3,000 per kilometer outside of England, while in England the cost of parliamentary fees and higher right-of-way costs rose to $ 4,500 to $ 6,000 per kilometer. An even narrower gauge railroad could be built for $ 1,000 a mile to connect farms to a mainline railroad, which would be of great use to farmers when there was enough transportation.

About eleven of these jackshaft-powered locomotives were delivered to sugar plantations in Hawaii. The first locomotive exported to Australia was purchased by John Spiller in 1881 with a gauge of 1,067 mm (3½ in) for his River Estate. Airdmillan Mill in Burdekin Shire imported a 0-4-2T Fowler patent locomotive with a gauge of 610 mm in 1882. The Colonial Sugar Refining Company imported at least two 2-4-0T Fowler patent locomotives for their new Victoria Mill. A 0-4-2T patent locomotive imported by the Mourilyan Sugar Company in 1883 is on display at the Australian Sugar Museum as the only surviving example in the world. In total, about a dozen patent locomotives were imported from sugar factories to Queensland. The Fowler patent locomotives 4666 to 4667 from 1883 were exported to Chile via W. & J. Lockett, a sales representative and shipowner active in Chile and Peru.

Steam, gas, electricity and oil could be used to operate the locomotives. Oil was beneficial because it resulted in less noise, smoke, and flying sparks. The latter was important when there were piles of straw and hay fields along the railway line. One man was sufficient to operate the locomotives. When the oil supply ran out, fresh supplies could be obtained in almost every village the route ran through. Interest was aroused in small and branch lines, but proposed changes in the law regarding the maximum permitted speed made it difficult to find investors.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Douglas Self: Jackshaft Locomotives.
  2. ↑ patent no. 402, Alfred Greig and William Beadon, The Commissioners of Patents Journal , No. 2770 (July 20, 1880); P. 167.
  3. ^ A b c Light Railways In: The Street Railway Review . Volume 5, 1895, p. 371.
  4. ^ A b Roberf F. McKillop and John Browning, John Fowler Locomotives, Sugar Cane Transport , Light Railway Research Society of Australia, Feb. 29, 2000.
  5. ^ Australian Sugar Heritage Center , 2010.
  6. ↑ Martin Coombs Chilean steam locomotive list Part 4 Sub-metric gauge locos. Version 2.12, 2017.