Marquis of Londonderry's Railway 0-4-4 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class 21/1712/2 (Locobase 20834)

Data from "The Locomotives of the Isle of Wight Central Railway", Locomotive Magazine, Volume XXVII [27] (15 September 1921), pp. 317-319. See also [Brunel Redivivus] , "Londonderry Railway", Railway Magazine, Volume 8 (1901), pp. 70-75.

One of the few wholly private lines in the British Isles, the 7-mile (11.3 km) Londonderry Railway was laid to connect the Marquis's mines at Sunderland with the Seaham Docks on the North Sea coast below the mouth of the Tyne. The cargo then poured into the holds of the Marquis's own fleet of ships. The Marquis spent 100,000 BPS on the project, which sent the first train down the line on 3 August 1854.

By the end of its nearly 50-year period of independence, the LR ran 12 passenger trains a day up and down the line. Six miles of the road were double-tracked with 82 lb/yard (41 kg/m) double-sided rail or 90-lb/yard (45 kg/m) bull-headed steel. Most of the rolling stock and several of the locomotives took form in the Seaham shops.

One of those was the trailing-bogie four-coupled passenger tank whose data appears in the specs. It was the last locomotive to come out of the Seaham shops.

After the much larger North Eastern Railway, which as of 1894 secured running rights, sought to build a connecting line against the Marquis's wishes, negotiations ended with the NER buying all of the assets. NER ultimately agreed to a long list of demands and paid 400,000 BPS. The deal received Royal Assent on 30 July 1900.

The NER renumbered the 21 as 1172 and ran it until it was sold to the Isle of Wight Central Railway in 1909,, where it took road #2. Its weight proved excessive even after the long tanks were cut back until their front edges ended behind the rear set of drivers. By 1917, the ICW sold the 2 to Armstrong Whtiworth & Company at Elswick in the Tyne & Wearside section of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.