The

Furness Railway The Furness Railway (Furness) was a railway company operating in the Furness area of Lancashire in North West England. History Formation In the early 1840s, the owners of iron ore mines in the Furness district of Lancashire became interested i ...

No.3, nicknamed "Old Coppernob", is a preserved English

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

. It acquired its nickname because of the copper cladding to its dome-shaped "haystack" firebox.

History

It was built in 1846 by

Bury, Curtis, and Kennedy Bury, Curtis and Kennedy was a steam locomotive manufacturer in Liverpool, England. Edward Bury established the works in 1826, under the name Edward Bury and Company. He employed James Kennedy as foreman; Kennedy later became a partner. About 1 ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

, a company with which the Furness Railway's first locomotive superintendent, James Ramsden, had been an apprentice. It is a four-coupled version of

Edward Bury Edward Bury (22 October 1794 – 25 November 1858) was an English locomotive manufacturer. Born in Salford, Lancashire, he was the son of a timber merchant and was educated at Chester. Career By 1823 he was a partner in Gregson and Bury's steam ...

's popular bar-frame design of the period, with iron bar frames and inside

cylinders A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infini ...

, and is historically significant as the only survivor in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

of this type. It is also one of the few items of

rolling stock The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, freight and passenger cars (or coaches), and non-revenue cars. Passenger vehicles can b ...

surviving from the

whose

Indian red Indian red is a pigment, a variety of ocher, which gets its colour from ferric oxide, produced in India. Other shades of iron oxides include Venetian red, Venetian Red, #English red, English Red, and #Kobe, Kobe, all shown below. Chestnut (co ...

livery it carries.

Withdrawal

It shared with three other similar engines all traffic on the Furness Railway for around six years. Latterly it was used for shunting around the docks at

Barrow-in-Furness Barrow-in-Furness is a port town in Cumbria, England. Historically in Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with Dalton-in-Furness Urban District in 1974 to form the Borough of Barrow-in-Furness. In 2023 the ...

and on local duties, being withdrawn in 1900, completing nearly 55 years of service.

Preservation

It is now housed in the

National Railway Museum The National Railway Museum is a museum in York forming part of the Science Museum Group. The museum tells the story of rail transport in Britain and its impact on society. It is the home of the national collection of historically significant r ...

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

. It has

shrapnel Shrapnel may refer to: Military * Shrapnel shell, explosive artillery munitions, generally for anti-personnel use * Shrapnel (fragment), a hard loose material Popular culture * ''Shrapnel'' (Radical Comics) * ''Shrapnel'', a game by Adam C ...

wounds from German bombs, acquired during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

when it was displayed in a glass pavilion at Barrow-in-Furness station. In February 2007, No. 3 had one of its shedplates stolen at York. In 2014, it was placed on loan to the

Dresden Transport Museum The Dresden Transport Museum (German: Verkehrsmuseum Dresden) displays vehicles of all modes of transport, such as railway, shipping, road and air traffic, under one roof. The museum is housed in the Johanneum at the Neumarkt in Dresden. The Jo ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

to take part in an exhibition celebrating the 175th anniversary of the

Leipzig–Dresden railway The Leipzig–Dresden line is a German railway line. It was built by the Leipzig–Dresden Railway Company between 1837 and 1839. It was the first long-distance railway and the first railway using only steam traction in Germany. It also included ...

due to its similarities to early locomotives built for the line.Verkehrsmuseum Dresden gGmH (Editor): ''Deutschland wird mobil. 175 Jahre Leipzig-Dresdner Eisenbahn''. Dresden 2014. , page 14-15.

History

Withdrawal

Preservation

See also

References

Further reading