Spotlight: Airlie

[@charlescarmichael1]

Really interesting to find out more about my forebear's locomotive.

[@hythekent]

You never fail to excite us

[@jasonwhitler4167]

The vertical vs. horizontal cylinder argument carried on well into the 20th century. Many competitors of John Deere tractors claimed that horizontal engines wore unevenly due to the weight of the piston.

[@DaimlerSleeveValve]

Yet there was real evidence from the thousands of stationary steam engines working hard 24x7 - mostly with horizontal cylinders.

[@cogidubnus1953]

You are to be congratulated for tackling this warts-and-all history of the railways, including all the less conventional diversions and explorations en-route...So stimulating and so much new to learn every time...Thank you!

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

Many thanks! Glad you're enjoying my videos.

[@17473039]

I've always loved the idea of a bell-crank driven engine. Its used heavily in suspension design for high end motorsport so its not too ludicrous an idea!

[@RockyRailroadProductions_B0SS]

That gab-actuated valve gear is so simple but it surely must have worked at least well enough for this little six wheeler to travel around. I love the little decorative gazebo on the return flue engine that came after it!

[@crazypickles8235]

I always wondered when the first bogied locomotives appeared in the UK

[@graceygal2664]

Dundee! My home town never guessed mentioned

[@GoCreatehms]

Another very interesting loco. It's fascinating to see the evolution of locomotives and the respective good and not so good imitations.

[@legiontheatregroup]

Great video, very interesting. So unusual that it was rescued and restored just prior to disappearing forever. I don’t recall ever hearing a sequence of events quite like that with any other vintage locomotive. Makes one wonder of it still exists somewhere in storage waiting to be discovered. Probably not. And yet…

[@johndavies9270]

Thank you very much for this programme, which solved a puzzled that's intrigued me for years. Commenting on an earlier programme - I think it may have been the Dublin and Kingstown, or the Manchester locomotive, I mentioned seeing a model, made some 80 years ago, in an old copy of the Model Railway News. This is the very engine. (The model was O gauge, and electrically powered.) You are an incredible source of fascinating information. I love this site

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoy my videos.

[@krimskrams]

very cool to highlight the first locomotive with bogies!

[@ajaxengineco]

I may have read the title and thought 'has he tried misspelling Fairlie's name and sticking it on a new video?' I was glad to be proven wrong, looking at the thumbnail left me with many more questions, however. A complicated little number, with a strange variation of valve gear (a video on the development of such?) and an interesting history. I like to think it's tucked away in pieces, in someone's garden shed. You mentioned, briefly, Stirling's Patent hot air engines, and, though you possibly didn't mean to, taught me how they came to be known as 'Stirling Engines.' Keep up the good work, I don't know where you're finding these, but it's always good to see more.

[@foowashere]

Thanks for making and sharing! Lovely to have that photograph of it, even if no longer around. Is anything known about why a bogie was selected for this particular locomotive?

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

Good question. I don't know I'm afraid.

[@Samstrainsofficially]

Have to wonder how much the marine practices of the manufacturer crept into the design rather than any particular weight being put on the opinions about horizontal cylinder ware, the engines they were making for paddle steamers and the like have very similar arrangement of drive being routed through a beam which then connects to a cranked shaft with the paddles each end. If they already had a cylinder pattern they could work into a design of loco they may have just decided to save a quid or two and use that along with some practices familiar to them of how to divert the drive around to where it's needed. All they've really done is add a right angle to normally straight side lever of a side lever type paddle steamer engine and underslung the axle in place of the drive staft would've been above the engine in a paddle steamer... if that makes sense Very similar swapping of ideas to later paddle steamer practice which involved taking what amounts to a traction engine set up of the cylinders mounted atop the boiler barrel and ditching the gears down to the rear wheels in favour of driving the paddles. Take one idea and apply it to another use of steam. Though I'm not sure which of those came first or weather both paddle steamer and traction engine borrowed from a stationary engine with horizontal cylinders atop the boiler, this also finding it's way into railways of course.

[@MJC19]

Very interesting! Can't wait for more!

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

Awesome, thank you!

[@Locomattive8572]

Huge fan, Iv learned so much from this channel, and watching your back catalog has helped during this first lockdown I was doing some volunteer work at steam railway today, and we where disgusting this channel and how good it is. One question we had was, With Break vans, now written of out of operations rule books for the national network in the UK. Will you do special on there origins on early operations? Thanks again.

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

We're going to look at brakes, so yeah.

[@absinthefandubs9130]

So, the Trotter's exhaust routing... was it some kind of proto-Franco-Crosti preheater? I know preheaters were somewhat common at the time but this particular arrangement is odd enough to have at least inspired Sigg. Franco and Crosti, what with routing both exhaust steam and exhaust gases along the length of the boiler. There was no feedwater routing through those ducts on the Trotter though, was there?

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

No, no feed water heaters, but the tenders were filled with warm water as with pumps you don't need cold water, unlike injectors. The idea appears to have been first used on the 'Manchester'. My only thought about the exhaust arrangement was to try and prevent smoke.

[@eliotreader8220]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory or to cut down amount of smoke coming from the chimney?

[@rickymherbert2899]

I'll have to get my hearing checked out as I kept thinking I heard "Dundee and Utah Railway". 😅 But thank you for another informative video. Keep safe, keep sane and keep posting such great content.

[@johndavies9270]

No, Ricky, it's not just your hearing - the subtitle making system heard it that way too!

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

How bizarre. I was deinfately saying Newtyle.

[@NoaZeevi]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory I think you mean definitely.

[@JonatanGronoset]

I don't have much to say about this odd contraption and its peers. One would think the success of the Planet would've made everyone opt for adopting its layout as the standard, but apparently... some had other ideas!

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

You'd have thought that, but no. Just look at some of the freaks on the Liverpool & Manchester like 'Experiment' or 'Manchester.' There were three regional 'schools' of loco building by the mid 1830s: the Stephenson School which was for a generalised, go-anwywhere, do-anything machine; the South Wales School which was a specialised machine for plateways and moving heavy mineral trains; and the Darlington School of Hackworth et al, again specialised machines for heavy mineral haulage. The Welsh and Darlington machines evolving to fit their own specialised niche, where they worked well, but outside of that niche... not so well.

[@Poliss95]

Such a variety of ideas about how to build the best locos in the early years of steam. Something I've wondered about for years. Why are platforms built to the same height as carriage doors? It would make it so much easier to get on and off. Have carriages got taller over the years, or was it just a cost saving measure?

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

At first, there were no raised platforms as we understand them. Passengers entered and exited railway carriages as they would a road carriage - using the steps on the outside and the commode handles and literally climbing up. By the middle of the 1830s slightly raised platforms, like those one can still see in Europe were becoming popular, but fullly raised platforms to the level of the carriage floor came later on in the late 1840s.

[@Poliss95]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory So did carriages became taller after the 1840s? The American stations I've used still don't have raised platforms. There was a disagreement even about the platforms being raised by just a few inches not that long ago.

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

@@Poliss95 No. The ride height, ie the floor level, has remained pretty consistent since the 1830s. Same with footplate heights on locomotives. What has changed is the loading gauge, ie width of the body and height of the body so you can now stand up in a carriage and even walk about. Something you couldn't do in a British Carriage until quite late in the C19th.

[@gquayle]

Are there any surviving engineering drawings, sketches, photographs or dimensions for this loco? It would make a very interesting to 5 inch gauge replica.

[@DiegoLiger]

There are photographs from which scaled drawings can be made using known dimensions. There is a live steam model of it in Dundee.

[@Samstrainsofficially]

@@DiegoLiger there's a few live steamers of it kicking around, one has sold at auction not that long ago. Also the museum that owns that model in Dundee has a bunch more live steam stuff hidden in it's off site store rooms, I managed to get a look in there once and I can thoroughly recommend asking if you can to. Besides more locos and stationary engine models there are also oddities from Egypt, mummies, heads of mummies, sarcophagi etc and much more that was either made or brought to Dundee but doesn't quite fit into their exhibitions of stuff.

[@furripupau]

I'm trying to comprehend how the bogie works with those springs being above the frame. Was it only intended to provide a degree or two of movement? Or is there some arrangement that allows the bogie to move while the springs stay put on the frame? (like sliding journals of some sort).

[@vernmorris8898]

Good question. I've given it some thought and here is my best guess. I belive that the springs would be attached to the bogie frame and that there would be four open areas or cut outs in the main frame to allow them to protrude through and move side to side within the main frame.

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

As far as I understand it, the springs are carried on the bogie and are free to move between the sandwich frame and the boiler/footplate.

[@mikebrown3772]

The centre of the bogie appears to be under the middle of the ashpan so the assumed centre pin on a bar linking the short downward leg of the bogie frames probably took no weight This suggests to me that the springs transferred the weight from the frames to the bogie with the posts linking the bogie to the centre of the springs able to move within a gap left in the core of the sandwich frames.

[@mikebrown3772]

@steam driver As each spring is directly above each axle there isn't any compensating effect. The degree of movement of the bogie would be similar to some of William Dean's earlier carriage bogies of about 1880 on the GWR before he adopted swing links closer to the bogie centre although these had horn plates with a lot of play instead of a centre pin.

[@furripupau]

@@mikebrown3772 Looking closely at the photo it does appear as though axle journals are mounted to the bogie frame, instead of sliding in horns, and that the bogie, not the axles is sprung. With a very obvious pivot point seen on the frame between the axles, so it very well would have offered a compensating effect if appearances are correct.

[@vsvnrg3263]

enjoyed as usual. something no-one has commented on yet is your diction, pronunciation, elocution whatever you want to call it. you make the effort and take the time to speak clearly. very little of what you say i cant understand. we'd be laughing at your accent if you were over here in australia. as you well would be laughing at mine if i was over there.

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

Thanks! (I think). You'd probably not believe me if I told you I am a stammerer - why on earth I thought doing youtube was a good idea I couldn't tell you - but speach therapy has brought it well under control but there are some sounds which still trigger like Bs and Ps and also Rs and sometimes Ss. Not quite Queen's English Received Pronunciation all old-school BBC, sort of "Posh Yorkshire".

[@vsvnrg3263]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory , past tense is appropriate. and after watching anything on your channel i'd believe everything you say. well perhaps not that bit about trevithick and bob stephenson walking to niagara falls (500 miles!). some of your viewers may appreciate your honesty. i never spotted it. are you related to george the 6th? one of my mates claims royal heritage because an ancestor was a chambermaid at hampton palace. and we laugh at his accent.

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

@@vsvnrg3263 Not related as far as I know... the family were refugees from one of the various anti-Protestant progroms in Europe in the 1600s, originally being Dutch (or that part of the world) apparently.

[@cogidubnus1953]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory Beautifully clear diction...for which thank you!

[@vsvnrg3263]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory ,i'm sure you are aware that george had a stammer as well. did you or did you not claim in a video that richard trevithick and robert stephenson walked 500 miles to niagara falls?

[@matteomarmiroli1713]

Hmmm, this is another loco story with no ending. Maybe it wasn't scrapped, but it's difficult to say, after all it was more than a century ago that the loco was last seen...

[@johndavies9270]

It could be anywhere - lurking at the back of a buried and overgrown shed. Such things have been known to happen. Ask Rev Awdry!

[@garryferrington811]

"Conventional...ish!" What on earth inspired a 4'6" railway? It seems to me it would have been so much simpler to just round up to 5'.

[@lewiscartwright3609]

I'm thinking about getting three 3D printed 00 gauge 0-4-0 tender engines from Toys or Models and I am going to paint one of them in L&MR and The other one in the Stockton and Darlington Railway livery and then one in either LNER Black or LNWR Black or LSWR or S.E.C.R Green Depending on what Livery I fancy But I am going to make Nameplates for all three One of is Going to be named Iron Duke and the other one is going to be named Formidable and then the The Third will be called either Indomitable or Bluebird

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

Sounds an interesting project! :) The Liverpool & Manchester painted their locomotives dark green with black lining, and white numbers on the buffer beam and brass cut out numerals on the chimney. S&DR was also dark green, apparently with blue tenders.

[@lewiscartwright3609]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory thanks for letting me know mate 👍. Cheers. Lewis

[@gavinwhitelaw86]

It was never "restored", merely assembled for the photo and then scrapped.

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

Contemporary press refer to it being re-painted before being photographed and put on display as a 'curious and interesting old relic.' Quite whay happened to it after that is anyone's guess, sadly.

[@gavinwhitelaw86]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory There is a live steam model at the Dundee Museum. The label on that says it was only reassembled for a photograph to be taken then scrapped. The contemporary press may be referring to that as there is no record that I know of it being on display.

[@robinforrest7680]

So this wee beastie was an 0-2-4?

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

In Whyte notation, yes.

[@FQP-7024]

Boosting the algorithm because I don't have anything smart to say