Garstang & Knotts End 0-6-0 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class Farmer's Friend (Locobase 20439)

Data from "The Knott End Railway", The Locomotive Magazine, Vol XXI (15 December 1915), p. 275. See also John Speller's Web Pages -- Narrow Gauge at [], last accessed 14 September 2018.

Located not far north of Blackpool on the Irish Sea in Lancashire, the G&KE was incorporated in 1870 to run from the London & North Western junction at Garstang & Catterall to Knott End-on-Sea, where the ferry sailed in a short run to Fleetwood on the coast. The first 7 miles (11.3 km) west to Pilling opened in 1870 as the Pilling & Garstang, but money ran short and constructing the remaining 4 1/2 miles (7.25 km) to Knott End had to wait until 1908.

The original right of way included iron rails weighing 48 lb/yard (24 kg/metre) and consisted mostly flat farming country. The second locomotive--also known as the Pilling Pig--was the saddle tank shown in this entry. A very tall flared stack vented the smokebox ahead of a prominent tank and short coal bunkers on either side of the safety-valve stand. The crew was sheltered by a continuous metal sheet that sported twin portholes both fore and aft.

After a 14 year lease, the G&KE bought the aptly named "Farmer's Friend" and operated it until 1900.

Class Knott End (Locobase 20440)

Data from "The Knott End Railway", The Locomotive Magazine, Vol XXI (15 December 1915), p. 275.

Locobase 20439 shows the second locomotive purchased for the Garstang & Pilling Railway in 1875. Hudswell Clarke supplied a saddle-tanker to the same railway in 1898. "Jubilee Queen" was powered by 15 x 20" cylinders, which turned 42" drivers, and owned a loaded weight of 30 tons (67,200 lb or 30,481 kg).

When the seven-mile line was extended to Knott End in 1908, the renamed G&KE observed the occasion by supplying an eponymous side tank engine. It followed familiar 0-6-0T lines for a short line in Britain, but Isaacson's patent valve gear, a modifed Walschaert gear design, was hidden away inside.