Castlederg & Victoria Bridge Tramway 0-4-0 Locomotives in Ireland

Class unknown (Locobase 5085)

Data from []. . (July 2002) and "The Castlederg and Victoria Bridge Tramway, Ireland", The Locomotive Magazine, Vol VIII (31 Jan 1903), p. 87. See also R M Livesey, "Rolling-Stock on the Principal Irish Narrow-Gauge Railways", Engineering, Volume 94, (2 August 1912), pp. 169-176, table on p. 175.

Small well-tanker (three well tanks) that operated for almost four decades on the 7 1/4-mile (11.7 km) long tramway. The C&VBT was financed using a "baronial guarantee"of government-issued bonds in which the baronies served by the railways would pay back the interest at a fixed rate over a set period of time.

Like most light railways in Ireland, this was a roadside railway and the locomotive had its complicated outside valve motion cased to avoid unnecessary involvement with pedestrians or cattle. A pioneering feature of these locomotives and rolling stock was the Westinghouse air brake system, needed to permit safe operation up the steep incline to the Victoria Bridge junction with the Great Northern. Indeed, this part of the line rose 215 ft in the first two miles, the greater part of it achieving a 1 in 30 slope (greater than 3%).

Requirements issued by Locomotive Superintendent Barton included the ability to pull a train of 50 tons up the 1 in 30 at 4 mph on a wet day. Their maximum speed was 12 mph.

Scrapped in December 1928 after being withdrawn in May.