 |
||||||
Ex-LNWR 0-6-0ST Special Tank Engine only bearing the nameplate 'Carr Depot Wol' is seen taking water at Rugby in March 1954. The London and North Western Railway's Special Tank Engine was a class of 0-6-0 Saddle Tanks locomotives derived from the LNWR's very successful and numerous DX Goods class. A total of two hundred and seventy eight locomotives were built from 1870 onwards, of which five survived to be inherited by British Railways in 1948. As built the 'Special Tanks' were very basic, lacking any form of footplate protection, having only a very small front weatherboard and one above the bunker. The cylinders and wheelbase were the same as the 'DX' Class 0-6-0 engines but the coupled wheels and boiler were smaller. The saddle tank extended over the boiler barrel and firebox, but not the smokebox which had a sloping front with a single door hinged horizontally at the top. Only the first two orders of ten each were completed before Ramsbottom retired, followed by another seventeen orders, mostly of ten each, until 1880. Webb quickly introduced steel frames, not so deep as the Ramsbottom. iron frames and therefore lighter and other changes soon followed, such as the shape of the splashers which on earlier engines had a smaller splasher over the coupling rods, being plain after the initial fifty, and H section spoked cast iron wheels after seventy had been completed. The third batch, No 2045 to No 2054, if not when new, ran for several years with short chimneys so that, based at Camden, they could reach wharfs on the lower Thames on tracks with low bridges: later standard height chimneys were fitted. Reversing was by screw, not lever, and of course only a hard brake with wooden brake blocks. So with the open footplate, a screw to run back and forth for every reversal, shunting on the worst of days with heavy ran and wind, or during fog, would have been exceedingly unpleasant and tedious for a shift of ten, or more hours, in the mid Victorian years.
|
|
|||||
Donate
Facebook
Search
back