COFFEE POT STILL STEAMING AT 150 YEARS OLD…
In 1871, T H Head (Engineer), London, supplied the Dorking Greystone Lime Company with an 0-4-0 vertical-boiler locomotive for use at its Betchworth Quarry in Surrey. The company asked for a number of ‘extras’ – including a large water tank and sprung buffers. The purchase cost was £462-9-6 plus £9-98 carriage. Allowing for inflation, this would be somewhere in the region of £55,000 today – probably a fifth of what it would cost to build a new ‘Coffee Pot’ from scratch!
During the summer of 1873, a replacement boiler was fitted. Built by Davey Paxman Ltd of Colchester, it was believed that it would be less prone to leakage than the Head Wrightson boiler. It has also been stated that due
