Yarmouth & Annapolis 4-4-0 Locomotives in Canada

Class Yarmouth (Locobase 15656)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University Vol 18, p. 202. See also the Dominion Atlantic Railway Digital Preservation Initiative - Wiki at [], last accessed 25 December 2013. (Thanks to Steve Meredith of the Dominion Atlantic Railway Digital Preservation Initiative for his 24 December 2013 email querying details in the two 4-4-0 entries in Locobase.) Works numbers were 13437-13438 in May 1893.

Meredith's inquiry led to Locobase's review of the specification shown above. The engines were ordered by the Western Counties Railway, which the DARDPI Wiki notes struggled financially for most of its two decades of existence. As shown in the specs, their tenders were lettered for the Yarmouth & Annapolis, named Yarmouth and Digby, and numbered 5-6. This name change for the WCR endured only until the Y&A was merged into the Windsor & Annapolis, which then was renamed Dominion Atlantic. At this point, the two were renumbered 17-18.

The engines used a single 9" (229 mm) piston valve to supply steam to each set of HP-LP cylinders. According to the DARDPI Wiki entry, the DAR conferred on the Digby "the honour of pulling the first DAR passenger train from Halifax to Yarmouth and return on October 1, 1894."

Both were converted by the DAR in 1907 to simple expansion using two 16 1/2" x 24" (419 x 610) cylinders. The Wiki notes that Digby was scrapped "before 1920 according to Omer LavallTe (1) or in 1924 according to Andrew Merrilees.(2)." Yarmouth's arrival at the ferro-knacker is more certain, being given as July 1923.

NB: Locobase estimates the direct heating surface area based on several locomotives built by Baldwin with identical grate sizes, but different firebox height measurements. All data is taken directly from Baldwin specification sheets.

The two most directly comparable engines (Locobases 12105 and 12138) were the 1894 Cincinnati, Lebanon & Northern D-37 and the Greenfield & Northern's 1894 Hattie J. Both had nearly cubic firebox dimensions whose length and width were identical to within 1/16" (1.6 mm) of the Y&A locomotives.

The two examples' depths measured 65 1/2" (1,664 mm) high in front, 64 1/2" (1,638 mm) in the back. The Y&A locomotive fireboxes were considerably deeper at 76" (1,930 mm) in front, 75" (1,905 mm) in back. Taking the firebox's length measurement of 69 1/2", Locobase finds that the sides of the Y&A fireboxes calculate to be about a third larger than the comparison fireboxes (1.35 larger). Applying that to the given measurement for the firebox heating surface area for the comparisons (116.3 sq ft/10.8 sq m)), Locobase derives the 155 sq ft (14.4 sq m) figure given in the specs.

He then adds the estimated firebox area to the known and calculated tube heating surface area to generate an estimate for the evaporative heating surface area.