Tralee & Dingle Light Railway 2-6-2 Locomotives in Ireland

Class 5T (Locobase 6404)

Data from Flanagan, The Cavan & Leitrim Railway (1968), p 114.

This single Prairie tank was the builder's works #555. On the TDR, this was an oil-fired engine using Holden's patented burner design. Starr notes that a 2-6-2T arrangement was uncommon in such operations, but that the ability to run in either direction without using a turntable may have led to its purchase. Perhaps, he notes, but "it always was [turned]!".

According to Simon Starr on the website [] (7 Dec 2004), this engine was well used and pretty much used up by 1902. Its reboilering came in 1906 and raised the engine's operating pressure to 150 psi. Starr continues: "No.5 then had a busy but humdrum existence for a number of years. She was used for a failed experiment in turf burning in 1944 during the massive coal shortages in Ireland at the time, though only managed to reach Emalough before the fire ran out."

5T didn't get to the C&L until 1949, where it saw "...almost constant use."

After the C & L closed in 1959, an American fan bought the 5T and later displayed in Steamtown when that facility was still in Vermont. In 1988 the loco returned to Ireland, where it was restored for the Tralee & Blennerville museum railway.