0-6-0 Steam Locomotives in Great Britain

Class Godshill (Locobase 8060)

Data from D Cole ([], accessed 4 Jan 2007) and G Horsman ([], accessed 4 Jan 07 as well). NB: Data refer to the Kerr, Stuart rebuild of 1895.

The two writers were respectively, the author of the original Industrial Railways Record article on Contractors' Locomotives on the Isle of Wight, and a letter writer who supplemented the information in the original article with specific data about the Godshill/California saddle-tanker.

Cole's original article, published in the IRR in No. 12 (pp 298-299, December 1966) , was a survey of many the different railways built in the late 1800s on England's Isle of Wight, the contracting companies that built them, and their locomotives. In it, he noted the 1889-1900 construction of the Newport, Godshill & St. Lawrence Railway, which connected Merstone, near the center of the island, with Ventnor on the south coast. It was on that railway that the Godshill first appeared. This engine was apparently built by the Worcester Engine Company in 1867-1868.

By 1895, the Godshill was clapped out and the locomotive was rebuilt at Kerr, Stuart's California Works in Stoke-on-Trent. (Locobase has to wonder what was left, but considers it likely that the wheels and frame were relatively untouched.) Horsman's data do not include boiler pressure. Locobase's number is an estimate, but gives a tractive effort result close to Horsman's stated figure of 9,048 lb. Godshill soon changed employers and operated for J T Firbank on construction of one of the Great Central's mainland lines, the Marleybone-St John Wood.