Furness 4-4-0 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class K1 / Seagull (Locobase 9912)

Works numbers 3618-3621 in 1890.

Sought by WF Pettigrew of Furness to take up to 300-ton tourist and business trains without assistance. They had inside cylinders and valve motion with a low running board, splashers and a straight boiler. All in all, a typical British 4-4-0 of the time and identical to the Sharp, Stewarts delivered to the Cambrian in 1878, 1886, and 1891 (Locobase 20140).

Steamindex comments on this class: "Though a considerable advance on the 2-4-0s, the Seagulls, as they were nicknamed, were soon themselves outclassed and were relegated to secondary duties." The K-2 "Large Seagulls" would improve on the design in 1896; see Locobase 9913.

All of the Seagulls were still in service in 1923 and repainted in LMS red livery with numbers 10131-10134. Withdrawals came in the late 1920s, the engines leaving in 1927, 1928, 1927, and 1925, respectively.

Class K2 / Larger Seagull (Locobase 9913)

Data from The Evolution of the Steam Locomotive (1803 to 1898): By G.A. Sekon (George Augustus Nokes), 2nd Edition (London: The Railway Publishing Co., 1899), p. 315 and from "The Locomotive History of Furness Railway," Locomotive Magazine, VolV (December 1900), p. 197. Works numbers were 4174-4179 in 1896 and a rush order for twom more followed in 1900 (works numbers 4651-4652).

This set of "Seagulls" were larger than the earlier quarted delivered in 1890 (Locobase 2741). They were the last to enter service during W R Mason's tenure as locomotive superintendent. Like the earlier engines, all of them were taken into the LMS in 1923 and given numbers following those of the K-1s; these were 10135-10142. All were retired by the late 1920s.

NB: Tube length is an estimate derived from subtracting the given firebox heating surface area from the given evaporative heating surface area and comparing that to the calculated tube heating surface for different tube length estimates.

Class K3 (Locobase 10212)

Data from "Express Engines, Furness Railway," Locomotive Magazine, Vol VII (February 1902), p.17. Works numbers were 4716-4719.

Successor to the Seagulls large and small (Locobases 9913 and 9912, respectively), this quartet designed by William Frank Pettigrew had enough increase in cylinder volume and boiler pressure to post a higher calculated tractive effort than the Seagulls despite the taller drivers.

Steamindex ([]) describes these as "handsome and efficient" and notes that they took all the main line express passenger traffic for 12 years and occasionally filled in for a K4 (Locobase 2741). Their relatively early retirements came in 1930-1931 because of a decline in passenger traffic, not for any lack of competence.

NB: Tube length is an estimate derived from subtracting the given firebox heating surface area from the given evaporative heating surface area and comparing that to the calculated tube heating surface for different tube length estimates.

Class K4 (Locobase 2741)

Data from "New Express Locomotive, Furness Railway", Locomotive Magazine, Volume XIX [19] (15 May 1913), p. 98. See also "Furness Railway: locomotive history", [], last accessed 14 January 2017. Works numbers were 20071-20072 in 1913, 20867-20868 in 1914.

Designed by WF Pettigrew of Furness to take up to 300-ton tourist and business trains without assistance. They had inside cylinders and valve motion with a low running board, splashers and a straight boiler. All in all, a typical British 4-4-0 of the time.

Steamindex reported that they were in fact very large machines of the time "...handsome and imposing engines, even larger than the contemporary LNWR designs, thus adding to the prestige of the small company" and their "much larger boilers [than the K3s] could cope with faster and heavier running with ease."

Their main run was the Barrow to Lancaster sectioin of the Barrow-London's Euston Station expresses. Taken into the LMS, they were withdrawn in the early 1930s.