Barry Railway Locomotive Class D
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Barry Railway Class D were
0-8-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles and no trailing wheels. Locomotives of this type are also referre ...
steam
tender engine A tender or coal-car (US only) is a special rail vehicle hauled by a steam locomotive containing its fuel (wood, coal, oil or torrefied biomass) and water. Steam locomotives consume large quantities of water compared to the quantity of fuel, ...
s of the
Barry Railway The Barry Railway Company was a railway and docks company in South Wales, first incorporated as the ''Barry Dock and Railway Company'' in 1884. It arose out of frustration among Rhondda coal owners at congestion and high charges at Cardiff Dock ...
in
South Wales South Wales ( cy, De Cymru) is a loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, south Wales extends westwards ...
. They were built to a standard Sharp, Stewart and Company design modified by John Waddington Mann, the Chief Mechanical Engineer for the Swedish & Norwegian Railway. In fact, 20 of these locomotives were ordered by this railway. However the company ran into severe financial difficulty with the result that only one and a half locomotives were paid for by the S&N.


Barry purchases

Two of the locomotives, S&N 25 and 26, never reached overseas but were retained by Sharp, Stewart. They were later sold to the Barry Railway in October 1889 and became numbers 35 and 36. Two other locomotives, S&N 5 and 8, were seized by bailiffs in Norway in December 1891. There then followed a long drawn out legal dispute between Sharp, Stewart and Swedish & Norwegian Railway. It was not until May 1895 that the Supreme Court in Sweden found in favour of Sharp, Stewart and the engines in question were returned to the manufacturers. In late 1896, they were offered to the Barry Railway who took delivery of them in March and April 1897. The two locomotives were numbered 92 and 93. They were the first eight-coupled locomotives in UK service. When the Barry Railway had need of more coal locomotives for coal trains on the
Vale of Glamorgan Line The Vale of Glamorgan Line ( cy, Llinell Bro Morgannwg) is a commuter railway line in Wales, running through the Vale of Glamorgan from Barry to Bridgend, via Rhoose and Llantwit Major. Route The Barry branch starts at Cardiff West and ru ...
it returned to Sharp Stewart, who had also supplied most of the locos on the railway, for similar engines to the Class D. The result was the Class H 0-8-2T, a tank locomotive variant with an additional rear pony truck, which allowed a coal and water capacity greater than that of the small Class D tender, whilst also being shorter and not requiring the use of turntables.


Traffic duties

An attractive feature of these locomotives for the Barry Railway had been their short overall length, due to their diminutive four-wheeled tenders. This made them unusually short for their power, suitable for the Barry Railway's restrictively short turntables, and their resultant limited range was not an issue for the short journeys of the Welsh mineral traffic. On arrival, the locomotives did very little main line duty but were confined to pulling heavy coal trains from Cadoxton Yard to Barry Docks. However, in 1909, 92 and 93 were assigned to haul mineral trains from the coal pits on the Rhymney branch of the Brecon and Merthyr to Cadoxton Yard and were mechanically modified for the purpose. Some fittings were modified on adoption in the UK, and later by the GWR. The original Salter safety valve fitted to the dome was removed, relying solely on the pop valves also fitted. Minor fittings, such as the handrails, were replaced by more GWR styles. The tenders were fitted with vertical weatherboards and spectacle windows. In 1922, on absorption by the GWR, their cabs were rebuilt more extensively, without the side windows but with an extended rear roof, they also gained the typical GWR flared brass cover to their safety valves.


Withdrawal

The locomotives passed to the
Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...
in 1922 but were withdrawn between 1927 and 1930. All members of the class were scrapped.


Numbering


References

* * * * * {{GWR absorbed locos 1922 on D 0-8-0 locomotives Sharp Stewart locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1889 Standard gauge steam locomotives of Great Britain Scrapped locomotives Freight locomotives