The 14 Bristol and Exeter Railway 4-2-4T locomotives were broad gauge 4-2-4T steam locomotives built to three different designs. The first entered service in 1853. The Bristol and Exeter Railway was amalgamated into the Great Western Railway on 1 January 1876, and the last of the 4-2-4Ts was withdrawn in 1885.
The distinctive designs by James Pearson, the railway company's engineer, featured single large flangeless driving wheels and two supporting bogies. The water was carried in both well and back tanks, leaving the boilers exposed in the same way as tender locomotives.
The three types are distinguished by the size of driving wheel; the early 9-foot-diameter (2.7 m) wheels being replaced by smaller ones on later designs.
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It tips the guard’s cutlass and silvers this nook;
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A jewel-block they’ll make of me to-morrow,
Pendant pearl from the yard-arm-end
Like the ear-drop I gave to Bristol Molly—
O, ‘tis me, not the sentence they’ll suspend.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“A lifeless planet. And yet, yet still serving a useful purpose, I hope. Yes, a sun. Warming the surface of some other world. Giving light to those who may need it.”
—Franklin Coen, and Joseph Newman. Exeter (Jeff Morrow)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“The flower-fed buffaloes of the spring
In the days of long ago,
Ranged where the locomotives sing
And the prairie flowers lie low:—”
—Vachel Lindsay (1879–1931)