Eastern Counties / Eastern Union 2-2-0 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class 12" (Locobase 9642)

Data from Francis Whishaw, Railways of Great Britain and Ireland (London: John Weale, 1842), p. 93. Boiler pressure is an estimate.

Whishaw said of these locomotives and those shown in Locobase 9643: "In principle they much resemble Mr Bury's engines; but there is an appearance of much greater weight and solidity ..."

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Class 13" (Locobase 9643)

Data from Francis Whishaw, Railways of Great Britain and Ireland (London: John Weale, 1842), p. 93. Boiler pressure is an estimate.

These were very similar to the 12"-cylinder engines shown in Locobase 9642, but with larger-diameter boilers and thus more heating surface area in the tubes. Whishaw noted : "In principle they much resemble Mr Bury's engines; but there is an appearance of much greater weight and solidity ..."

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Class Ariel's Girdle (Locobase 10536)

Data from "The Locomotives of the Great Eastern Railway," The Locomotive Magazine, Vol XI (15 November 1905), pp. 6, 189. Boiler pressure is an estimate. Works number was 270.

This unusual engine was displayed at the 1851 Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace by the company then known as Kitson, Thompson & Hewitson. It was intended to pull a single composite carriage, thus representing, according to the LM history, "...an early example of the rail motor which has found considerable favour just recently [sic]." The long wheelbase consisted of a carrying axle under the smokebox and the single driving axle just ahead of the firebox. The steam dome straddled the boiler between the two axles and the locomotive used coke as a fuel.

On the EUR, which soon was taken over by the Eastern Counties Railway, the little engine operated in light duty, but its scant adhesive weight led the shops to add a driving axle and reduce all four drivers to 48" diameter in a tightly spaced 4 ft 3 1/2" spread. As a 2-4-0T, the 28 weighed 24,080 lb (10 tons 15 cwt) empty, 29,680 lb (13 tons 5 cwt) loaded. It ran until 1879.

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Class Express (Locobase 10327)

Data from "The Locomotives of the Great Eastern Railway," The Locomotive Magazine, Vol VIII (30 May 1903), p. 369

Often dubbed the "Lilliputian" for its small dimensions, this 4-wheel carriage designed by the ECR's James Samuel amounted to a rail-borne omnibus and represented the earliest days of the unending search for economical light passenger railroading. It resembled most a buckboard with a vertical boiler placed over the front wheels and open seating for 7 passengers in the latter two-thirds of its 12 1/2-foot length. .

The dimensions tell just how small and low-powered the vehicle was, but the machine received a full trial. Its 23 October 1847 trip from London to Cambridge covered 57 1/2 miles in a net time of 1 3/4 hours (about 33 mph) and speeds of 43 mph were reported. The LM author quotes the Artisan reporter, who effused: "The engine behaved splendidly on crossing points and rounding curves, and there appeared less rocking than is usually experienced in first-class carriages traveling at the same speed." One contemporary account noted that the ratio of dead load (i.e., tare) to payload was about 2 to 1, roughly equivalent to a London horse-drawn stage coach, but traveling at 4 times the average speed.

Certainly the fuel economy couldn't be faulted. In 6 months covering 5,526 miles, Express consumed an average of 3.02 lbs of coke per mile.

It's likely that the tiny capacity of the engine was too easily overmatched even by the payloads that could be placed on board the carriage. Moreover, building up the Express's passenger accommodation would have instigated an upward spiral in weight and size. Samuel continued his efforts at developing such vehicles and produced the Enfield; see Locobase 9646.