Ballycastle 4-4-2 Locomotives in Ireland

Class unknown (Locobase 2758)

Data from "4-4-2 Side Tank Locomotives, Ballycastle Ry", The Locomotive Magazine, Volume XV [15] (15 May 1909), p. 97. See also [] (accessed 7 April 2005), in particular an article by James I. C. Boyd; and 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. s, Works numbers were 4665-4666 in 1908.(Note: So dilatory was the financially straitened Ballycastle in its payments to Kitson that the engine builder eventually charged interest on the balance due.)

Boyd notes that GTM Bradshaw, locomotive superintendent, designed these tanks. He wrote that Bradshaw shortened the overall wheelbase by driving the rear axle. LM reported that "...these engines ride remarkably easily and steadily up to 30 miles per hour and are very easy on the road bed."

Perhaps so, but OS Nock (Railways of the World in Colour IV, pl 15) described the pair as "larger, and rather clumsy things for the little railway on which they had to work, and their 'modern' appearance rather belied their capabilities." Among other drawbacks, these two were slippery on heavy grades, an outcome predicted by their low 3.18 factor of adhesion. Livesey suggested that the 4-6-2 arrangement could have used another driving axle. (He didn't specify whether the result would have been a 2-8-2T or 4-8-2T.)

When they went to Larne after the consolidation of narrow-gauge lines, they served as yard goats and freight engines until they were scrapped in the 1940s.