0-6-4 Steam Locomotives in Great Britain

Class Beddgelert (Locobase 4821)

Alun Turner's account of the NWNGR and its successor the Welsh Highland Railway (found on []..) says that this engine may have had an inclined boiler; i.e., one that was not level when the engine was. Designed for the Bryngwyn branch, the Beddgelert had to tackle ruling gradients of 1 in 39 (2.56%) to 1 in 48 (2.08%). In addition to the inclined boiler (which Turner believes, based on admittedly limited evidence, the engine may have had), four sandboxes were slung, pannier-fashion, two on each side of the saddle tank.

Beddgelert was scrapped in 1906 once the NWNGR obtained the Russell.

Class Gowrie (Locobase 4823)

Data from "New Locomotives on the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railway", The Locomotive Magazine, Vol XV (15 January 1909), p. 17. Works number was 979.

Probably the last Single Fairlie built for use in the British Isles, according to Alun Turner's excellent account of the NWNGR and its successor the Welsh Highland Railway (found on []..), this saddle tanker was named for the manager of the Portmadoc, Beddgelert & South Snowdon Railway Gowrie Colquhoun Aicheson.

Compared to the older Fairlies on the line, the side tanks on Gowrie were much shorter. It also had a raised firebox with safety valve stand. Its boiler had less heating surface (although it was longer).

Class Snowdon Ranger (Locobase 4820)

The NWNGR wound and climbed through the North Wales countryside near Mount Snowdon from Dinas Junction up to Pitts Head Halt, at 647 ft the highest point on the line. It then curled downward to end at Portmadoc on the coast. These single Fairlies had two bogies -- the power bogie forward and the trailing bogie under the fuel bunker.

Snowdon Ranger (739) was first, followed by Moel Tryfan (738). Alun Turner's excellent account of the NWNGR and its successor the Welsh Highland Railway (found on []..) notes that although sent for repairs in 1908 and 1913 respectively, both engines were in poor repair by 1917. So the railroad, which had never made a profit, cannibalized the two into one, which sustained the name Moel Tryfan.

After several more years of service on the NWNGR, Moel Tryfan was trimmed to fit through the Ffestinog's tunnels. (The NWNGR's tunnels were built to standard-gauge dimensions and must have seemed cavernous.) By 1936, the engine was sent in for boiler repairs, but they were never carried out and the derelict Fairlie eventually was scrapped in 1955.

NB: The direct heating surface (including the firebox heating surface) is an estimate calculated by subtracting the calculated tube heating surface from the reported total evaporative heating surface.