In 1919, the

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It am ...

built a single 0-10-0

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 ...

, No 2290 (later LMS (1947) 22290 and BR 58100). It was designed by

James Anderson James Anderson may refer to: Arts *James Anderson (American actor) (1921–1969), American actor *James Anderson (author) (1936–2007), British mystery writer *James Anderson (English actor) (born 1980), British actor * James Anderson (filmmaker) ...

for banking duties on the

Lickey Incline The Lickey Incline, south of Birmingham, is the steepest sustained main-line railway incline in Great Britain. The climb is a gradient of 1 in 37.7 (2.65% or 26.5‰ or 1.52°) for a continuous distance of two miles (3.2 km). Constructed ...

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...

(south of Birmingham), England. It became known as "Big Bertha" or "Big Emma" by railwaymen and railway enthusiasts.

Banking on the Lickey Incline

The Lickey Incline is the steepest sustained main-line railway incline in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

. The function of a

banker A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

is to provide extra power on steep inclines by being added to the rear of other trains. Bankers were also used to protect against wagons or coaches breaking away, in which case they might run in front of a train going downhill. They largely went out of use with the introduction of advanced braking systems and diesel and electric locomotives, although banking on the Lickey Incline continues as of 2022 using a pool of specialised Class 66 diesel-electric locomotives.

Numbering

No 2290 was built at the

Derby Works The Derby Works comprised a number of British manufacturing facilities designing and building locomotives and rolling stock in Derby, England. The first of these was a group of three maintenance sheds opened around 1840 behind Derby station. Th ...

of the

in 1919 and was in use up to the year 1956 by the

London, Midland and Scottish Railway The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMSIt has been argued that the initials LMSR should be used to be consistent with LNER, GWR and SR. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway's corporate image used LMS, and this is what is generally u ...

(LMS) and

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

(BR). She was numbered 2290 from new and kept this number through most of her LMS life, but was renumbered to 22290 in 1947 to make room for the numbering of a Fairburn 2-6-4T. Only a year later she was renumbered to 58100 by

since adding 40000 to her number (as was done with the majority of LMS engines) would have put her in the 6XXXX ex-

LNER LNER may refer to: * London and North Eastern Railway, a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1923 until 1947 * London North Eastern Railway, a train operating company in the United Kingdom since 2018 * Liquid neutral earthing resistor, a typ ...

series.

Specification

Big Bertha's cylinder arrangement was unusual. There were four cylinders but only two sets of

piston valve A "piston valve" is a device used to control the motion of a fluid along a tube or pipe by means of the linear motion of a piston within a chamber or cylinder. Examples of piston valves are: * The valves used in many brass instruments * The va ...

s because there was insufficient space under the smokebox to fit piston valves for the inside cylinders. Instead, the large outside piston valves (as well as supplying the outside cylinders) supplied the inside cylinders through cross-over steam ports. The steam-flow characteristics would have been poor (because of the length of the ports) but this would not have mattered unduly in an engine that ran only at slow speed. It has been suggested that this design has been influenced by the four-cylinder cross-ported arrangement of the Italian 0-10-0

FS Class 470 The Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (FS; Italian State Railways) Class 470 (Italian: ''Gruppo 470'') is a 0-10-0 steam locomotive. Design and construction The Class 470 locomotive was one of twelve standard designs developed by the FS right after th ...

heavy freight locomotive (in which this was motivated by its being part of an asymmetrical

compound Compound may refer to: Architecture and built environments * Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall ** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struct ...

design), of which a complete set of drawings were stored at

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gai ...

. With a weight of and 10 driving wheels with a diameter of , she had a

tractive effort As used in mechanical engineering, the term tractive force can either refer to the total traction a vehicle exerts on a surface, or the amount of the total traction that is parallel to the direction of motion. In railway engineering, the term tr ...

of . She, the LMS Garratts, and, later, LNER's class U1 Garratt were the only locomotives not given a

power classification A number of different numbering and classification schemes were used for the locomotives owned by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and its constituent companies; this page explains the principal systems that were used. The followi ...

by either the LMS or BR, either because the bankers were designed specifically for the job of providing extra power at slow speeds and were not suitable for normal train working, or because their starting tractive effort fell well outside the system and it was not worth extending it for so few machines.

Withdrawal

The engine was withdrawn on 19 May 1956 and scrapped by Derby Works in September 1957, having covered mostly on the Lickey.

BR standard class 9F The British Railways Standard Class 9F 2-10-0 is a class of steam locomotive designed for British Railways by Robert Riddles. The Class 9F was the last in a series of standardised locomotive classes designed for British Railways during the 1950 ...

number 92079 took over, acquiring Big Bertha's electric headlight for the duty. The other banking turns on the Lickey were operated by

Midland Railway 2441 Class The Midland Railway (MR) 2441 Class was a class of steam locomotive. Introduced by Samuel Johnson in 1899, originally with round-topped fireboxes. Henry Fowler later rebuilt them with Belpaire fireboxes. They were given the power classifica ...

LMS Fowler Class 3F The London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) Fowler 3F is a class of steam locomotive, often known as Jinty. They represent the ultimate development of the Midland Railway's six-coupled tank engines. They could reach speeds of up to 60 ...

0-6-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and no trailing wheels. This was the most common wheel arrangemen ...

Ts, and

GWR 9400 Class The Great Western Railway (GWR) 9400 Class is a class of 0-6-0 pannier tank steam locomotive, used for shunting and banking duties. The first ten 9400s were the last steam engines built by the GWR. After nationalisation in 1948, another 200 we ...

pannier tanks often in pairs, operation being controlled by a complicated system of whistle codes.

References

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External links