Cavan & Leitrim 0-6-4 Locomotives in Ireland

Class King Edward (Locobase 6401)

Data from Flanagan, The Cavan & Leitrim Railway (1968), 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. A full description of the C & L is given in Locobase 6400. Works number was 3136 in 1904.

Flanagan explains that the early success of the line, especially in livestock traffic and excursion trains, prompted an order to Stephenson for this tank. The railway paid 1,750 pounds and delivery came rapidly after the order, the locomotive first being steamed on 28 October 1904, not quite four months after the order.

It was an imposing locomotive with nearly the largest grate on an Irish narrow-gauge engine and a great deal of power, being able to haul 24 cattle cars. Alas, according to Flanagan, the design was a dud, "...a white elephant whose capabilities were rarely, if ever, shown to the full." Its relatively long wheelbase repeatedly, if informally, regauged the track. So persistent was this problem that by May 1907, Flanagan reports, "it was decreed that the engine should not be used except in case of absolute necessity, and that even then its use must be reported to the chairman."

Flanagan's account of King Edward's subsequent history shows that no real cure was ever found for this problem and that by 1922 it was essentially "more or less rusticated". No buyer could be found for it and so it repined for decades.