Caledonian 4-2-2 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class 123 (Locobase 2224)

Data from E L Ahrons, The British Railway Locomotive, 1825-1925 (London: Locomotive Publishing Company, 1926); amended by data from J. Pearson Pattison, British Railways: Their Passenger Services, ... (London: Cassell & Co, 1893), p 135. Ahrons gave figures for firebox area (112 sq ft/10.41 sq m) and total heating surface (1,085 sq ft/100.80 sq m) that differ from the set in Pattison. Locobase adopted the latter because of the more complete set of data given in the latter source. See also Glover (1967)

Glover called this design "a bogie single of the most authentic British tradition with inside cylinders and frames throughout, the only example of such a machine which [the Mid-Victorian] period furnishes." His Plate 9 showed a very upright, short and narrow boiler whose smokebox rests over the bogie pivot, well short of the leading bogie axle. An inversely tapered stack exaggerates the impression.

Ian McDonnell, in notes accompanying Bryan Attewell ([] Steam locomotive simulator (April 2000 edition), notes that 123 was the only Caledonian engine used in the 1888 Race to the North. One trip between Carlisle and Edinburgh (100.6 miles) took 102 minutes 33 seconds nonstop.

Railroad Gazette's account focused on the 101 miles without a stop while pulling a then-standard 3,325 US gallon tender. The author calculated that the maximum water consumption per mile was 31.3 gallons with a commensurate economy in coal.

She carried on, eventually being used on Perth-Dundee locals before her retirement in the 1930s. She was later preserved and used in special trips.