Avondale Estates 0-4-2 Locomotives in Australia

Class Fairymead (Locobase 11647)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Volume 15, p. 220, Volume 31, p. 65, and Volume 78, pp. 422+. See also John Knowles, "Four and six coupled on sugar mill tramways," Light Railways No 148 (August 1999) as archived on the Light Railway Research Society of Australia website at [], last accessed on 24 September 2011. Works numbers were 10533 in December 1889, 32105 in October 1907, and 58286 in March 1925.

This was a typical small sugar-plantation locomotive that Baldwin was then supplying to several continents. The purchaser was AH & E Young sugar company, which sent it to the Avondale plantation located on the Gladstone line some 15 miles from Bundaberg in Queensland.

Eighteen years later, the same plantation returned to Baldwin for a second locomotive of the same dimension; the buyer is shown as "Bennie & Kitchen" in the specs, but Locobase is unable to identify that company. The 2, like the 1,was a wood-burner and was fitted with the flared, spark-arresting Radley & Hunter stack. The only significant difference was a 20-psi increase (1.4-bar) increase in boiler pressure, which raised tractive effort to 2,600 lb. Estimated adhesion weight dropped to 9,500 lb (4,309 kg) and engine weight to 14,000 lb (6,345 kg).

Eighteen years after that delivery, Fairymead Sugar came back to Baldwin for a third locomotive, thus buying three locomotives of essentially identical design over the length of 37 years. By this time, the spark arresting stack was a Rushton.

All served the Fairymead throughout their careers. 2 and 3 were scrapped in 1957, but 1 survived to be displayed at the museum.

Although Knowles does not mention Baldwin engines specifically, his discussion of the relative merits of four-coupled vs six-coupled sugar tramway locomotives is well worth reading.