Belfast & County Down 0-4-0 Locomotives in Ireland

Class Steam motor (Locobase 10377)

Data from S S Knabenshue, 7 April 1905, United States Consul, Belfast Ireland, Consular Reports By United States. Bureau of Foreign Commerce, United States. Dept. of Commerce and Labor, numbers 295-297 (Washington, DC: G.P.O., 1905), p. 177. See also Michael Collins, "Irish steam rail-motors and railcars", Irish Railway Record Society, [], last accessed 20 may 2009. Kitson works numbers were 4296-4297.

Knabenshue reported that the pair of steam motor cars -- the first in Northern Ireland -- had a locomotive linked to a 45-ft railway carriage; total length of the assembly was 63 ft. The locomotive was laid out as an 0-4-0 with a Belpaire firebox. According to Knabenshue, "The car proper is of the ordinary American corridor type, with seats for 48 passengers, who will enter and leave by the rear platform."

Their service area was to be Belfast to Holywood, "...a seaside suburb 4 miles distant, making five intermediate stops. If these experimental cars prove the success that is anticipated, additional ones will be procured and the service will be extended as far as is practicable on the two lines of the company."

Michael Collins reveals that the source of the development was Belfast Corporation Tramways' plan for an electric tramway to operate between the same two points. Deployment of the two steam motors included 27 trips at 20-30 minute intervals. They were a hit and service between Belfast-Dundonald started soon after.

But the B & CDR didn't maintain these two (plus a third, larger steam motor --Kitson works number 4383 --acquired in 1906) and by 1918, all three motors were spent. The carriages were lengthened, placed on two non-powered bogies, and towed by a tank engine.