GREAT STEAM ENGINEERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY PART FOUR: THE 1840s
The period from 1840 to 1850 saw continuing rapid progress in steam locomotive design. A new generation of engineers was coming through and the designs of steam pioneers such as Timothy Hackworth were being quickly superseded.
While Hackworth was the locomotive superintendent of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, he designed an 0-6-0 goods locomotive, No. 25 Derwent, which was built in 1845 by William and Alfred Kitching. It was similar in design to two of the company’s 1842-built locomotives, Leader and Trader, with outside cylinders fixed at the trailing end of the boiler and 4ft diameter coupled wheels.
By comparison with the products of later in the decade, this was quite an ancient looking locomotive. Withdrawn from service in 1869, it was sold to Pease & Partners for use on its colliery lines and spent some time at the construction of the Waskerley reservoir. It took part in the Stephenson Centenary celebrations at Newcastle in 1881 and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897.
“Craven reorganised and enlarged Brighton works, and recruited skilled engineers from Leeds to enable the company to start building its own engines. Craven’s locomotives were good but he did not believe in standardisation and built one-off engines for specific jobs. By the time William Stroudley took over in 1869, there were no less than 72 classes of steam locomotives on the LBSCR.”
was presented to the North Eastern Railway in 1898 for preservation and after restoration, the locomotive ran under its own steam in the 1925 Stockton &
