The

Great Southern Railways The Great Southern Railways Company (often Great Southern Railways, or GSR) was an Irish company that from 1925 until 1945 owned and operated all railways that lay wholly within the Irish Free State (the present-day Republic of Ireland). The p ...

(GSR) Class 850 consisted of a single

2-6-2T T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is deri ...

tank locomotive built by Inchicore railway works in 1927, the sole example carrying the same number as the class. It was the first locomotive designed and built by the GSR since it was formed.

Design

The design incorporated elements while retaining some features typical of previous

Inchicore Inchicore () is a suburb of Dublin, Ireland. Located approximately west of the city centre, Inchicore was originally a small village separate from Dublin. The village developed around Richmond Barracks (built 1810) and Inchicore railway works (b ...

engines. It was suggested that parts of the last unaccounted for Class 393 kit supplied from Woolwich may have been incorporated into the design.

Service

The locomotive worked

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

— Bray— Greystones services and particularly was noted for regular appearances on the 17:07 Greystones express and Dún Laoghaire pier for the boat connections. It also had a short spell on

Waterford "Waterford remains the untaken city" , mapsize = 220px , pushpin_map = Ireland#Europe , pushpin_map_caption = Location within Ireland##Location within Europe , pushpin_relief = 1 , coordinates ...

—

Limerick Limerick ( ; ga, Luimneach ) is a western city in Ireland situated within County Limerick. It is in the province of Munster and is located in the Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region. With a population of 94,192 at the 2016 ...

services in the 1930s. The locomotive was powerful but was prone to a rolling motion at speed. Number 850 was noted for long and frequent periods out of service for repairs.

Incidents

In 1946 the locomotive fell into the turntable pit outside the Dublin

Harcourt Street railway station Harcourt Street railway station is a former railway terminus in Dublin. The station opened in 1859 and served as the terminus of the line from Dublin to Bray in County Wicklow. It closed in 1958 following the closure of the Harcourt Street l ...

and required extensive repairs.

References

{{Ireland Steam Locomotives 2-6-2T locomotives 5 ft 3 in gauge locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1928 Scrapped locomotives Steam locomotives of Ireland Individual locomotives of Ireland