Data from 1899 Brooks Catalogue

Builder info from B.Rumary, 25 Kingscombe, Gurney Slade, Radstock, BA3 4TH, ENGLAND and Jeremy Lambert as supplied by Allen Stanley in March 2004.

Works #3189-90 in March 1899. (3818-3819, delivered in April 1901 as road #93-94, may well have been duplicates.)

It's interesting to compare this engine with the 2-6-0 built for the same railroad 2 years earlier and shown in the same catalogue. They resemble each other strongly with the obvious difference of the Consolidation riding on one more driving axle. Boiler diameter is identical at an even 6' (72"). The drivers are more closely spaced on the 2-8-0 and are 2" smaller.

Dimensionallly, going from 2-6-0 to a 2-8-0 meant:

increasing cylinder bore and stroke by 2" each,

realizing a very small 3.2% increase in firebox heating surface even as it grew longer and wider,

using 58 fewer flues that were 1/4" greater in diameter and 2' 9" longer for an overall 11% gain in heating surface, and, most important,

putting an additional 7 3/4 tons on the drivers to take advantage of the additional tractive effort.

Proclaimed in the Railroad Gazette (20 June 1900) as the largest and heaviest locomotives in the world at time of printing, these two Consolidations look more like gimmick than a genuine leap forward in power. Although the high cylinder volume, high boiler pressure, and small drivers yielded an impressive tractive effort figure, other dimensions show an unbalanced design. The grate is very small for all of the heating surface and the adhesive weight insufficient to gain full value from the steam admitted to the cylinders. In fact, so small is the grate that the engine was very likely short -winded once the relatively capacious boiler's initial supply of steam had been exhausted.

Builder information from B Rumary list supplied by Allen Stanley in March 2004. Works numbers were 2100-2101 (June 1900). Rumary's list shows that 151 was scrapped first in 1936 while 150 lasted until 1943.