William Bridges Adams Light Locomotive
In the latter half of the 1840s, William Bridges Adams began to dabble in locomotive design with the help of several key figures, particularly the resident engineer of the Eastern Counties Railway, James Samuel. He had established a works at Fair Field, Bow in 1843 for the purposes of expanding his business building carriages and wagons for both rail and road and locomotive construction was a natural progression.
Together they developed the principle of the light locomotive which was proffered as an alternative to the ever increasing weight and power of railway locomotives in general, particularly with the gauge wars and stiff competition between the mighty broad gauge with it's powerful Gooch designed passenger engines and the ultimate symbol of power and speed on Stephenson's gauge, Thomas Russell Crampton's mighty 'Liverpool'.
Adams argued that the wear and tear on the permanent way was unacceptable, it being barely able to keep pace with locomotive and rolling stock development. The huge volume of dead weight hauled around by large engines meant that much of the time, particularly on branch lines, the arrangement was highly uneconomical. Adams offered an alternative in his lightweight locomotive and carriage, either as a fixed vehicle with engine and carriage on one frame like 'Fair Field' for the broad gauge and 'Enfield' for the Eastern Counties, or a paired light engine and tender carriage. His vision and that of James Samuel was for frequent light 'shuttle' services and it could be said that considering the make-up of todays trains on lesser lines, he was way ahead of his time. This locomotive and its tender/carriage was first illustrated in Adams' 1850 publication 'Road Progress' as a fold out plate. Essentially the same design appeared in one of his many (32) patents, No.13653 of 1851 and the culmination of this design was Ariel's Girdle displayed at the Great Exhibition in the same year, although this was made by Kitson, Thompson & Hewitson of Leeds since Adams was bankrupt by the summer of 1850 and the Fair Field Works sold off. The design concept was sufficiently noteworthy for Zerah Colburn to illustrate it in his 'Locomotive Engineering and the Mechanism of Railways' in 1871, although the tender carriage in Colburn's drawing is considerably shorter than the original and looks decidedly odd. Stephenson's continued this basic design and one of their versions was illustrated by Daniel Kinnear Clarke in his book 'Railway Machinery'. It is more sophisticated machine and makes for an interesting comparison.
This drawing is reproduced courtesy of the National Archives.
My fascination for the life and work of William Bridges Adams is well established and aside from writing his biography (an ongoing long term project requiring an immense amount of research not helped by Coronavirus lockdown restrictions), I have an ambition to model at least a good representative selection of his various creations. The 4mm scale model described here is the first of my efforts towards modelling his locomotives. During 2020, the Bodmer single occasionally drove me mad so I felt it was important to have a side project to restore the equilibrium, a sort of yin and yang approach. I would not normally have two loco projects on the go simultaneously in the fear than neither of them would get finished however, in this case it proved a blessing. The following photographs show its current state with much still to do including the tender/carriage.
I have to say I find it one of the most attractive (dare I say sexy?!) little engines I have ever seen. Further pictures will be posted with some constructional details in due course.
The wheels are only just on (I don't like to force them home until I'm ready to fit them for the final time) and the splashers balanced in place. The footplate side sheets are made but not yet fitted. Cylinders and motion remain to be finished and may well be fitted after painting. They are very delicate and if I gum them up with paint (schoolboy error) I will not forgive myself! There is a little more plumbing to be done such as the steam pipes from the dome and the injectors but it is almost there.
The drop in the buffer beam allowed the smokebox door room to open since the boiler was fairly low slung. Adams was a great believer in keeping the centre of gravity as low as possible, a popular theory of the time. The idea was that it made for steadier and safer running but this was not quite the case. The footplate was no wider than the outside edge of the splashers and therefore quite narrow. Later versions including those made by Stephenson who continued the design were wider.
The coupling to the tender/carriage can be seen and th two brass pipes are the feed from the water tank, a long wide shallow container which sat under the tender/carriage. Apparently water from the well tank under the boiler was circulated back through this tank to keep the passengers warm in cold weather. Clever!
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