Baddesley Colliery, Atherstone Beyer-Garratt Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class William Francis (Locobase 640)

Works number was 6841 in 1937.

Data from compilation of Garratt data posted by Gavin Hamilton at [] (6 September 2005). See also Roger E. West's article on the William Francis originally published in The Industrial Railway Record (No 11 - September 1966) and archived online at [] 22 July 2004).

This was one of three standard-gauge Garrtts produced for British industrial users to the same design as the first (Locobase 641). West notes that this Warwickshire colliery had built a link to the Midland Railway in the 1880s. It was a steeply graded line with sections pitched at better than 2% for most of the way. Toward the colliery end, the gradinet was 1 in 30 (better than 3%) and ultimately 1 in 23.

Baddesley used several non-articulated locomotives before they purchased this single Garratt in 1937. West says that it was virtually identical to the other three industrial Garratts then working in Britain (Locobase 500, 502, 641), "but suffered the economy of steel boiler bands and dome cover instead of brass ones on the earlier ones." Like the others, the William Francis used a Belpaire firebox.

The steep grade meant that the locomotive pushed the mineral wagons ahead of it going up and ran ahead of them coming down. Maximum load coming down was 18 standard 16-ton wagons. In later years, leaking steam required a lookout be posted on the smokebox.

By 1966, the William Francis was worn out and had been bought by Canadian enthusiasts.