West Lancashire 0-4-2 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class Bank (Locobase 20658)

Data from "The West Lancashire Railway and Locomotives", Locomotive Magazine, Volume XXIV [24] (15 June 1918) p.95. See also "The West Lancashire Railway" on the Tarleton-Hesketh Bank website at [], last accessed 17 October 2019. Works numberr was 2835 in 1878..

Locobase 20657 describes the first pair of engines to serve this coastal railway. This third locomotive of the class was delivered a year after the first two as a saddle tanker. Named Banks, it repeated virtually all of the details of the 1 and 2, but had its frame extended behind the trailing axle to accommodate a bunker.

Some tiime later the 3 was converted to a tender engine.

Class Edwd Holden (Locobase 20657)

Data from "The West Lancashire Railway and Locomotives", Locomotive Magazine, Volume XXIV [24] (15 May 1918 and 15 June 1918) pp. 79-82, 95. See also "The West Lancashire Railway" on the Tarleton-Hesketh Bank website at [], last accessed 17 October 2019. Works numbers were 2715-2716 in 1877.

When the WL gained its authorization in 1871 to construct a line along the Irish Sea coast north of Liverpool, it was projected to connect Southport and Preston. The goal was to support Southport's rapid growth and develop an alternative to the Lancashire & Yorkshire. Lack of consistent funding meant a delay of years before the intervention of wealthy Edward Snowden (married to Maria Wood, daughter of the first mayor of Southport) provided the stability to begin Beginning at Hesketh Park in Southport, contractors built 6 1/2 miles to Hesketh Bank and opened it on 19 February 1878.

Pulling the first trains were these two front-loaded mixed-traffic locomotives. 1 was named for the WL's benefactor and two was named for T Hesketh. Like other shortline engines, these were stubby machines with the two driving axles closely spaced and a trailing axle under a very short footplate. As befit a British locomotive of the day, the pair had brass trim, brass name plate, and splashers over the upper driver segment. Both had their names changed to more prosaic recognition of key towns Southport at one end, Longton at the other.

The original dream of connectiing Blackpool with Liverpool through the WL didn't survive economic reality and even connecting Hesketh Bank with Longton (near Preston) was delayed until March 1882. (Meanwhile, a short freight-only spur down the western bank of the Douglas river linked the WL to the Leeds & Liverpool canal.)

Construction included throwing a bridge over the Douglas and hard clay to be dug, but the 2 3/4 mile (3.6 km) section was finished in May 1882. The last link to Preston, 4 1/4 miles (6.8 km) further on and crossing the River Ribble on a seven-span viaduct, opened in September. The WL established a direct connection with the L&Y at Whitehouse Junction, relying on running powers on the ten-mile (16 km) to Blackburn. Total distance for the WL came to 25 miles (40 km).

More can be said about the WL (see both sources shown above), but suffice to say that it proved to be a useful link in that agricultural area, although original passenger schedules proved too ambitious and suffered large cuts in only a few years. A weaker sister line--Liverpool, Southport & Preston Junction Railway (LS&PJR)--dropped southward to Altcar Junction, but never was a good earner.

The 1 and the saddle tank 3 (Locobase 20658), modified to be a tender engine, had relatively short lifetimes and were scrapped before the 1897 merger with the L&Y. The 2 (by then renumbered 7) never actually served the L&Y either.