Locomotives and Rolling Stock
The company only had two locomotives: outside-cylindered 2-6-4Ts, built by Kitson & Co. of Leeds in 1904, which were the first 2-6-4T locomotives to run in Britain - the first standard-gauge examples being the Great Central Railway's Class 1B of 1914. Number 1 was named E.R. Calthrop, after the line's engineer, and number 2 was named J.B. Earle (the resident engineer). Due to the influence of Calthrop, the locomotives had a somewhat colonial appearance with large headlights which were never used. They also had fittings for cow catchers - again never fitted, and they sported rerailing jacks by the smokebox. The locos were originally painted brown with gold and black lining, after the grouping replaced by crimson lake with gold and black lining. Latterly, after the Great Depression had set in, they ran in plain black.
There was no turntable on the line, and engines ran chimney first towards Waterhouses, despite initial concerns (usually engines on a gradient run the other way, to keep the water over the firebox crown) about the steeper down section (1 in 40) out of Waterhouses. In latter years E.R. Calthrop returned from repairs in Crewe facing the other way, as can be seen in later photographs.
There were four coaches; two first class and two brake composite thirds. These were originally painted primrose yellow, and later repainted in LMS Midland red.
Freight wagons consisted of one box van and two open wagons. These open wagons were built by the Leeds Forge Company and were largely designed for the transport of loose milk churns.
Additionally there were also five (four short and one long) transporter wagons, technically "low side bogie goods wagons". These were supplied by the Cravens Railway Carriage & Wagon Company at a cost of £315 each. Uniquely in Britain, in a piggy-back style these were capable of carrying standard gauge wagons - particularly milk tankers and coal wagons - to standard-gauge sidings along the route. However, the extra height and width of the loading gauge caused by this arrangement (such as seen in the dimensions of Swainsley Tunnel) undid some of the benefits of using a narrow gauge. This arrangement also meant that standard gauge lengths of track (on sidings) had to be constructed level with the rails of the low transporters.
Read more about this topic: Leek And Manifold Valley Light Railway
Famous quotes containing the words locomotives, rolling and/or stock:
“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)
“The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a wheel rolling on its own, a prime movement, a sacred Yes.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“I met a Californian who would
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He said, in climate, none had ever died there
A natural death, and Vigilance Committees
Had had to organize to stock the graveyards
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—Robert Frost (1874–1963)