Grand Junction 2-2-2 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class Aeolus (Locobase 16092)

Data from Arthur E Kyffin, "Some Vulcan Foundry Engines", The Railway Engineer, Volume 17, No 9 (September 1896), p. 260; and Francis Whishaw, The railways of Great Britain and Ireland practically described and illustrated, 2d ed.( London: J. Weale, 1842), pp. 160, 456-457.. Works numbers were 65-74 in 1838.

Repeating the London & Southampton design (Locobase 16091), this decade of single-wheelers were named Aeolus, Merlin, Prometheus, Pegasus, Tamerlane, Phoebus, Talisman, Thalaba, Tartarus, Sunbeam.

Francis Whishaw wrote of the Aeolus's first run on the GJR when it began operation on 4 June 1838. Pulling a 35.75 long ton train, the locomotive only managed 15.56 mph (25 kph). Its 21 July run with a trailing load of 96,194 lbs (43 long tons) "occupied 115.25 minutes while in motion between London and Maidenhead, 22.50 miles [36.2 km), being at the rate of only 11.71 miles an hour [19.kph]". The modest average speed hides a stoppage caused by a boiler tube springing a leak and extinguishing the fire.

Whishaw further reported that from those early days,. the average speeds had increased to about 30 mph (48 kph) by 1840. Indeed, only four months later Aeolus averaged 31.39 mph from Maidenhead to Paddington.

Class Forrester (Locobase 656)

Data from E L Ahrons, The British Railway Locomotive, 1825-1925 (London: Locomotive Publishing Company, 1927).

A further development of Forrester's 2-2-2, unusual for its valve gear. The eccentric rods extended up from a single outside eccentric, their gab ends hooking over the ends of a rocker bar mounted on the boiler. Below the bar pivot was a third arm connected to the valve rod rocking shaft. They also used outside cylinders when most other early locomotives put their cylinders inside the frames.

Few of these were produced.