When were locomotives first used for shunting? What were the first Shunting Engines?

[DCB]

When were locomotives first used for shunting.  Obviously Locomotion no 1 of 1825 and Rocket 1829  have no front buffers or draw gear, The Norris locos of 1840(?) have both front buffers for banking, and saddle tanks to add adhesion weight, I started wondering when the UK's addiction to shunting got beyond a couple of bloke or a horse or two and they were supplied with a locomotive.  It looks like carriages and 0-4-0 Bury locos and the like could be moved between roads by wagon turntables and stock manhandled for the first few years but I wondering when shunting engines first came into use.  The earliest dedicated shunting locos I can find are Stroudley HR 0-6-0Ts circa 1860s cobbled up out of superannuated main line locos.   

 

  

[Wickham Green too]

Rather depends on your definition of 'shunting' - very few industrial locos would have been considered 'main line' machines but were the rest 'shunters' ?

[DCB]

1 hour ago, Wickham Green too said:

Rather depends on your definition of 'shunting' - very few industrial locos would have been considered 'main line' machines but were the rest 'shunters' ?

Good point.  I would define a shunting locomotive as one employed on arranging or re arranging wagons or coaches (even engines)   within a Station or set of sidings or a depot.  And not a locomotive employed to move coaches or wagons from one station or yard or sidings or depot to another station or yard or set of sidings etc.  A Robinson 0-8-4T but not a Bowen Cooke 0-8-4T.  

[AMJ]

Probably about 1812.  The train locos at Middleton would have been used to marshall wagons at the pit and the staith.  No turntables so locos able to pull and push from either end.

 

Many locations still used animal power (eg horse and elephant) for moving single wagons until 1960's,  I have seen photo of Newmarket (Suffolk)  where a 31 has dropped off a train and then a few vehicles were shunted by horse.

[The Stationmaster]

As already noted it depends on how you define ;shunting'. Certainly the need to move vehicles about would have come fairly early in the history of moving things on rails but generally - depending on gradient - that could as easily and cheaply be done using manpower than anything else.  Don't forget taht men were cheaper to obtain (that cost nothing), and keep in foodstuffs etc, than a good horse.  Equally it couldn't surprise me if at busy locations such as coal staithes some sort of capstan system emerged rather than anything else in view of the nature of the structures.

 

Engines appear, from various records and sources, to have acquired buffers and drawgear at the leading end by the mid 1830s and increasingly so during the latter half of that decade.  The first purpose built tank engines for that company appeared on the GW in 1849 - but they were for working passenger trains,  not specifically for shunting.  And obviously when it comes to shunting for train marshalling purposes or dealing with busier yards (of all sorts) the reality is that they could be shunted by any goods engine with smaller driving wheels than was usual for passenger engines.  The main incentives for industrial and shunting tank engines were probably cost and size - an engine without a tender was cheaper to build and buy and could work into smaller (length wise) spaces than an engine with a tender.

 

On early engines with small tenders and no cabs it would not have been much more difficult to look back past the tender than forward over the running plate.  But always with the Stephensonian outline steam engine, as with all the BR diesel shunters, it was far more comfortable to shunt with it chimney end towards where the work was being done.  driving an e ngine where you are continually twisted round to keep a lookout can be an uncomfortable experience. 

[Steamport Southport]

1 hour ago, AMJ said:

Probably about 1812.  The train locos at Middleton would have been used to marshall wagons at the pit and the staith.  No turntables so locos able to pull and push from either end.

 

Many locations still used animal power (eg horse and elephant) for moving single wagons until 1960's,  I have seen photo of Newmarket (Suffolk)  where a 31 has dropped off a train and then a few vehicles were shunted by horse.

 

It's on film.

 

Charlie and Butch were the horses. Used at Newmarket as the engines spooked the horses when shunting them. Lasted until at least 1964.

 

 

 

Jason

Edited January 5, 2023 by Steamport Southport

[Aire Head]

10 hours ago, DCB said:

the UK's addiction to shunting

 

While I can't give an answer of when locomotives for shunting became a thing I do want to single out this part of your post.

 

I'm not sure that the word "addiction" is fair or correct one within the context of the subject. Shunting (switching for you colonial types) is just a part of how the railway works and is unavoidable. Railway operators generally prefer to have as little of it happening as possible because it's dangerous and costs both time and money. This can been seen in how goods yards, sorting sidings and marshalling yards were designed.

 

An "addiction" to shunting to my mind suggests that it was something which the railway were either trying to actively increase in prevalence or an unnecessary habit to which they refuse to kick. 

[Rivercider]

The early years of railway operation, either industrial or main line, was a steep learning curve for all involved.

 

From early beginnings most of the future main lines only had perhaps four or five departures a day, so the provision of an additional locomotive to marshall stock, that could be easily moved by hand, was probably never considered.

I wonder if any of the major road coaching inns or Royal  Mail locations kept a pair of horses to bring carriages in and out of the carriage house while the incoming team were fed and watered? Edit - perhaps they also used older horses no longer fit for main road duty for these purposes?

 

It also seems to be the case that quite a few of the very early main locos were unfit for purpose from their introduction, or were overwhelmed by increasing loads within very few years.  The early locos supplied to the GWR were a very mixed batch, including some pretty hopeless cases. In January 1839 Gooch reported that  'Venus is the worst engine' , 'but we have kept her as a pilot at Maidenhead'. Does this mean she was a pilot to assist trains on the main line, or as a station or yard pilot?

 

I believe it was 1875 before the LSWR bought six 0-6-0STs from Beyer Peacock, having previously relied on 0-6-0 goods locos, or 'retired' main line passenger locos to carry out shunting,

 

cheers 

Edited January 5, 2023 by Rivercider
tidying up, and additional info.

[Steamport Southport]

From day one.

 

The first proper mainline railway* was for transporting large amounts of goods from the docks in Liverpool to Manchester and manufactured goods back to those docks. Those goods had to be sorted so they got to the correct destination. As now, time was money. No idea why people think they were just playing trains. Even then this was the equivalent to a multi billion pound industry.

 

Don't forget Rocket was an express passenger locomotive, not a goods engine. Built to run at speeds of up to 30 mph, but soon superseded by newer locomotives.

 

Locomotives like Rocket are only about the size of a small 0-4-0ST. Manufacturers such as EB Wilson and Todd, Kitson and Laird were building contractors locomotives in the 1830s. They were virtually shunters used to move small wagons about during the construction of the railway and were often sold to the railway company when the job was complete. Manning Wardle had it's origins in EB Wilson and built a lot of these small locomotives. They're the locomotives you should be looking for, not ones built by the railway companies.

 

 

*As opposed to most previous railways that were built to transport one item such as coal or minerals such as slate.

 

 

 

Jason

[The Johnster]

Drawgear and buffers on stock, and screw couplings with sprung buffers on passenger stock, were not provided specifically to facilitiate shunting, however you define that, but to reduce breakages for goods and increase comfort for passengers; anyone who has ridden in a goods brake van on a loose-coupled train with even the gentlest of drivers will attest to the benefit of screw couplings tightened to eliminate the gap between the buffers.  The framing at the ends of vehicles is also designed to absorb buffing shocks and prevent damage from rough shunting.

 

That said, buffers do make shunting easier, both by protecting the stock and by allowing space between the vehicles for the shunter to deploy his coupling pole without exposing himself to the danger of going between the vehicles. 

 

As for when the first locomotives were used for shunting, Trevithick's first steam trombone locomotive was very probably used in shunting movements to marshall it's train from Penydarren to Abercynon in 1805.  Hackworth's and Blenkinsop's engines must have marshalled their trains before departure and broken them down on arrival as well.  Any and all railway locomotives are likely be involved in shunting operations at some point in their working day, but some spend their entire working day involved in shunting operations, and some are designed specifically for that purpose.  08s, arguably amongst the latter category, were frequently used for local trip work, which is not pure shunting.

 

In steam days, locos designed specifically for shunting were not exactly rare but very much a minority of those employed on shunting duties.  The majority of shunting duties were carried out by 0-6-0 tank engines, such a GW 57xx, LMS Jinties, LNER J50s etc, which were not designed specifically for this work, and could be found on local goods and passenger work as  well.  8750s worked the Newport-Brecon service, 40-odd miles over the Brecon Beacons and of 2 and a half hour duration; gangwayed stock with toilet facilities was provided.  The station pilot at Reading was a Hall class, able to take on any working whose loco had failed at a moment's notice.

 

'Proper' shunting engines were of two basic types; hump yard pushers, like the GC and NER 4-8-0Ts and 0-8-4Ts, and the Southern's Z, or dock shunters like the various pugs, the 15xx, and USA tanks, and the 67xx, a 57xx variant without vacuum brakes.  15xx were used on the OOC-Paddington ecs trips, but they were not the best tool for this job and were employed because they 'looked modern', apparently after somebody had written to the Thunderer to compain about the poor image supplied by the ancient looking 8750s at Paddington with thier big Victorian domes.  The M7s over the road at Waterloo seem not to have bothered anyone, not the J69s at Liverpool St. 

 

Industrials are a different case, with engines needing to take on any role that came their way, sometimes on indifferent per way* and on tight curvature, mostly purchased 'off the peg' (though the manufacturers did design or modify some to customers' specifcations, like the NCB's 'Fife Special' Andrew Barclay 0-4-0STs or the BMC Longbridge Bagnalls).  The work was largely what one might call shunting, but in many cases involved trip work between sites or to exchange sidings.  The NCB ran main line passenger trains in the Northeast of England, vacuum brakes, on BR track, the works; their drivers and guards had to be passed out by BR inspectors in BR rules and regs, and sign the appropriate route knowledge, and there were NCB mineral trains with NCB locos and brake vans that ran on BR metals up there as well  At the other end of the scale there were tiny 0-4-0STs and Ruston 48DS moving a few vans or wagons along a short length of track, and everything in between. 

[Nearholmer]

This might give a few clues about when shunting engines “took off”:

 

I’m sure locos we’re being used for shunting, by which I understand “making up and breaking down trains”, before they became a big topic of written communication in the 1870s and 80s, so my instinct is that is when it became normal to build locos specifically for that job.

 

[Nearholmer]

An early-ish purpose-built shunting engine:

 

 

The old loco in the UK that spent a long period as a shunting engine, although it started and finished as a tramway engine, is “Jane”, built by England and now at Didcot. Similar date to the above, and actually some similarities in appearance (only some!).

 

 

[Wickham Green too]

I presume "c.1900" is a stab at the date of the photo ...... it reads like that's the build date - which it blatantly isn't ! 

[Nearholmer]

It was built 1857/8, as wax Jane/Shannon, and although I’m not sure I think this similar beastie too, LBSCR No. 400:

 

 

They're rather nice little engines these. No frills.

[magmouse]

5 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

It was built 1857/8, as wax Jane/Shannon, and although I’m not sure I think this similar beastie too, LBSCR No. 400:

 

 

They're rather nice little engines these. No frills.

 

In this picture, it's a BYOT loco - Bring Your Own Tarpaulin

 

Nick.

 

 

 

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Was the sudden upsurge in shunters post-WW2 because of the introduction of specific 0-6-0 diesels to undertake these duties? Why was this? Previously the Big Four had numerous classes of 0-6-0Ts but these weren't specifically limited to shunting due to their higher running speed; being used on freight, ECS and branch passenger work too.

 

Was the limitiing max speed of around 20mph for the diesels, why they were almost totally consigned to shunting? Obviously their "switch-on-and-go" capability made them ideal for this work, but rather than stick at 20mph, should more effort have been put into a more general purpose small diesel with a 40/50mph capability?

 

I suppose we eventually saw this with the class 14, but by then it was too late.

 

 

[Nearholmer]

I think the upsurge in written references to shunting engines post-WW2 probably was due to diesels being much discussed, but I think also because railway enthusiast publications became much more common then .

 

I ran the search for “shunting locomotive” too, and found that that term took over c1970.

 

The low speed limit on DE shunters was because of the need to avoid flogging the traction motors at low speed and high current, causing overheating, which necessitated double-reduction gearing. The earliest EE 350hp had single reduction gearing and were faster, but did overheat during prolonged spells of heavy dhunting. Similar issues applied with geared transmissions, so the Bulleid 500hp loco had two ratio-sets, effectively “shunting” and “trip”, which approach I’ve seen on narrow gauge Ruston 48hp locos too. 

 

 

Edited January 5, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Forward!]

Worth noting that besides using superannuated 'road' engines, a number of the pre-group companies solved the problem of needing dedicated shunting engines by purchasing "industrial" locomotive designs. For example the MS&LR in the late 19th century had a number of Manning Wardle K class and a couple of Hudswell Clarkes on their books for working Grimsby docks before Pollitt finally designed the Class 5 (LNER J62) in 1897.

 

Will 

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Nowadays, you'll more than likely see a mainline loco doing any shunting. For example, the "shunter" used at Westbury is a DB Cargo class 66.

[phil_sutters]

In October 1882 the Somerset & Dorset acquired a light 0-4-0 saddle tank for £385. It was of 1852 vintage, originally supplied to Grays Chalk Quarries, Essex by Slaughter Gruning & Co. It subsequently passed through several concerns located around the country. The S&D needed it to augment its shunting horses in the Radstock area. This appears to have been the first loco specifically acquired for shunting by this company.

[Nick Holliday]

9 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

It was built 1857/8, as wax Jane/Shannon, and although I’m not sure I think this similar beastie too, LBSCR No. 400:

 

 

They're rather nice little engines these. No frills.

No 400 was built in 1868 as an 0-4-0 saddle tank No. 27 to run a shuttle service on the Polegate to Hailsham branch and had to be quickly adapted as an 0-4-2 to improve running. It was rebuilt into the 0-4-0WT in 1874 to replace a secondhand Manning Wardle as Works Pilot at Brighton, finally being sent to Earlswood in 1877 to be the shunter at Redhill. The old MW had an interesting life, having been bought from the contractor Chappell in 1871, then sold back to him in 1874 and finally being purchased by the LSWR in 1884, where it lasted until 1894, carrying the name Sambo.

The Brighton had some dedicated shunters earlier than that. Craven built two pairs of robust wing tank 0-6-0’s for shunting at Willow Walk yard, in 1866 and 1868. Three of them ended up on the Alexandra (Newport & South Wales) Docks and Railway Company in the 1880’s where they lasted until 1904/6.

[The Stationmaster]

13 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Was the sudden upsurge in shunters post-WW2 because of the introduction of specific 0-6-0 diesels to undertake these duties? Why was this? Previously the Big Four had numerous classes of 0-6-0Ts but these weren't specifically limited to shunting due to their higher running speed; being used on freight, ECS and branch passenger work too.

 

Was the limitiing max speed of around 20mph for the diesels, why they were almost totally consigned to shunting? Obviously their "switch-on-and-go" capability made them ideal for this work, but rather than stick at 20mph, should more effort have been put into a more general purpose small diesel with a 40/50mph capability?

 

I suppose we eventually saw this with the class 14, but by then it was too late.

 

 

Probably partly to do with terminology and very much to do with the physical characteristics of what could be achieved in a small diesel loco design between the late 1930s and mid-late 1950s.   Of course some of the 1950s shunter designs had a higher speed capability. wirg, for example the BR 204hp version having a maximum speed of 28mph while the earlier Drewry version could manage almost 26 mph and both types were used for freight trip working while the BR version was also used - albeit in a rather unusual situation - on branch line Workmen's Trains.   The 09 varainat of the standard BR 350hp shunter could manage 27 mph.

 

Shunting work requires particular capabilities in a loco - the ability to move quite heavy loads, and for freight shunting in perticular, the ability to maintain a steady speed at around walking pace with whatever load circumstances demand 9which could mean 50 loaded wagons.  If a loco is geared to do that it won't necessarily - depending on technology of the time - also be geared to run at, say. 45mph on the open road overa wide range of gradients with a load of several hundred tons.

 

But basically in Britain diesel shunters were exactly that - shunting machines.  And the 'road switcher' idea was more reflected - albeit more for train running than shunting - in the various Type 1 designs )very few of which were really suitable for shunting work).

[asmay2002]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulton's_Siding

 

might give some clues.

[Artless Bodger]

19 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

An early-ish purpose-built shunting engine:

 

 

The old loco in the UK that spent a long period as a shunting engine, although it started and finished as a tramway engine, is “Jane”, built by England and now at Didcot. Similar date to the above, and actually some similarities in appearance (only some!).

 

 

That loco looks a lot like the Fire Queen, built 1848 for the Padarn Railway.

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Artless Bodger said:

That loco looks a lot like the Fire Queen, built 1848 for the Padarn Railway.

It does, and it also looks like a series of 7ft gauge locos that were built for use on admiralty breakwater construction projects at about the same time, and were deployed to various parts of the Globe including I think Australia, so my surmise is that it might have been inspired by them. It is broad gauge, but 5ft 3in, rather than 7ft.

 

Boulton’s Siding: I dug the book out and started looking through it last night with this topic in mind. It’s certainly possible to trace the transition from use of tiny 0-4-0 and 2-2-0 tender engines on railway construction  work and in industry to the use of 0-4-0ST. There is a cracking example of a Bury 2-2-0 rebuilt with smaller (3ft diameter) wheels and turned into a neat (by Boulton standards!) 0-4-0ST, for instance.

 

I need to read more to find out what was the earliest loco that was built from the outset as a tank engine which came into his hands. Tank engines were definitely being purpose-built for industry by the 1850s, but I have an inkling that they may reach back into the 1840s.

 

What I don’t have any more is a full set of IRS journals, which contain a lot of info about very early industrials from now-obscure makers, and I never did have histories of all of the Leeds engine makers, or an encyclopaedic knowledge of early builds for/by mainline companies. I did know about the LBSCR Willow Walk shunters, but presumably other companies must have had similar, after all the Brighton had less goods to shunt than most, not more. Or, did J C Craven invent the “heavy shunter”???

 

 

Edited January 6, 2023 by Nearholmer