|
|
|
Snailbeach Lead Mine The Snailbeach
Locomotives |
|
|
|
Belmont For the opening of the line in 1877,
the Company acquired a 0-4-2 saddle tank locomotive, built by Henry Hughes
& Company and named Belmont after one of the principal shareholders’
house. The Company was desperately short of capital and the locomotive was
obtained second-hand, at an advantageous price as the result of colliery
liquidation, with the happy coincidence that its gauge was correct, She had
been built by Henry Hughes and Company of Loughborough and was supplied new,
probably in 1874, to the Ifton-Rhyn Colliery, near Chirk, and was named
‘Salome’. It had been supplied to help in the construction of a railway that
was planned to connect with the 2’ 4” Glyn Valley Tramway but in the event
this was never completed.
Although no full photograph is known
to exist It is likely that Belmont was similar in appearance to the Hughes
locomotives on the Corris Railway (one of which survives as the Talyllyn
Railway's ‘Sir Haydn’), because all known Hughes saddle tanks have a strong
family resemblance. The Corris locomotives weighed about the same as Belmont,
but had smaller driving wheels and cylinders. Belmont appears from a part
photo to have had a cab, with the rear open above waist level. It was a
relatively small 0-4-2 saddle tank weighing around ten tons in working order,
with 10” x 15” cylinders and 2’ 7 ½” diameter driving wheels. It was moved on 15th February 1877
from its colliery home to Oswestry, where it received a number of weeks' work
at the hands of the Cambrian Railways’ workshop staff. This consisted mainly
of a repaint - white lead undercoat and red lead topcoat - but some repairs
and refitting too, including new gauge glasses, some new metal work and a
pair of Cambrian Railways buffers. It was kitted out with an oil feeder, a
gauge lamp, a signal lamp and sundry other items. New Belmont name plates do
not seem to have been fitted, although the scrap value of two old name plates
was subtracted from the final bill, together with other items cashed in to
keep the cost down. Work had finished at the end of June. The Cambrian
company delivered Belmont to Pontesbury Station by rail ready for the
Snailbeach District Railways being opened for traffic in July 1877. By 1882 Belmont was well worn and
had to be ‘renewed’ at a cost sufficient to require a slice of a newly issued
Debenture. By the late 1890s she was again much worn and had gone to the
Wrexham firm of Cudworth and Johnson for extensive repair. One of the first
acts of the Railway Board after Dennis reconstituted it was to raise cash ‘so
that the engine [Belmont] be delivered’. Raising the cost of £340/1/2 took
from January to April 1900 and another special debenture was issued to cover
the cost. This must have been a very substantial repair and it seems likely
that it would have been sufficient to ensure that Belmont was the last
survivor of the original two engines, disappearing from the books in 1912. Fernhill By 1880, Belmont was literally
feeling the burden of carrying the railways’ heavy traffic and was in need of
overhaul. The Board therefore authorised the acquisition of a second
locomotive at a cost of not more than £1000. They had reported this need to shareholders
on 16 February 1880. They did not however formally give approval till August.
The locomotive was bought through
sales agency Lennox, Lange & Company. This agency sold the products of
such locomotive builders as Andrew Barclay and Barclays & Company, both
of Kilmarnock. Receipts indicate a total cost of £900 some of which had to be
paid for with a debenture issued in 1882. Given the price there can be no
doubt that the purchase was a new locomotive. It carried maker's plates
showing its builder as Lennox, Lange but this was a common practice for
agency sales of locomotives. It is likely that the locomotive was one of
Barclays & Co's, probably one of works numbers 279, 280, 281 or 285. On
23rd August 1881 the Directors reported the new locomotive received and
working. It was named after another shareholders‘ house.
Fernhill was much larger than its
predecessor. However with the prospect of heavy coal traffic uphill and lead
ore downhill the new locomotive needed to be as heavy and as strong on
braking as possible. A clue to this need can be found in the Directors'
report to shareholders in1881 "In view of the present and prospective condition
of the Traffic of the Line, and of the possibilities of accidents, your
Directors consider that the time has arrived when additional Locomotive power
should be acquired …” .To assist in controlling such heavy loads, the later
Bagnall locomotive Dennis was certainly fitted with steam brakes and sand
boxes. Such features were particularly important when you consider the damp,
greasy rail conditions prevailing in the railways hilly location. Dennis (No 1) Henry Dennis, by now the Chairman
and engineer and after whom the engine was to be named, advised the Board at
its September 1905 meeting that with the opening of the new Eastridge quarry
either one locomotive must be repaired or a new one bought. This advice and
course of action was confirmed. This was just as well as the locomotive had
already been ordered from W.G. Bagnall Limited of The Castle Engine Works,
Stafford, by Dennis & Son from its "Engineers Office, Ruabon"
on 15th February 1905.The locomotive was a 0-6-0 side tank with 12” x 18”
outside cylinders, 2’ 9 ¼” diameter wheels and an 8ft 6” wheelbase. It was
equipped with Bagnall-Price valve gear. At 85% of the 150 Ibs/sq in working
pressure, the locomotive had a tractive effort of 9900lbs, making it very
powerful indeed for the narrow gauge. Delivery was on 20th February 1906. The
cost was £970, with £370 down and 12 quarterly payments of £50 commencing on
25th June 1906. The SDR's difficult financial position meant that even this
extended payment system required the sale of Debentures to the mining
Company.
The weight in working order of
Dennis was comparable to Fernhill at 22 tons. The locomotive was clearly a direct
replacement for Fernhill and it is probable that this locomotive was
withdrawn around this time. Dennis did all that was required of
her and for much of her career was the only working locomotive hauling,
perhaps with assistance from one other engine before 1912, the heaviest
traffic the railway ever carried. Spares for the engine were consistently
ordered from Bagnall until the last record on 20th March 1923 about which
time the loco was probably set aside for repairs. Although Stephens provided ample
replacement motive power for the resurrected line there were continuing hopes
of repairing the loco and he numbered it 1. During November 1924 called in H.
Nevitt, a consulting engineer and retired LMS official, whom Stephens used
for day to day engineering matters on the Welsh Highland/Festiniog. He
examined Dennis to report on the progress of boiler repairs. Out of a total
of 271 copper stays in the firebox, 132 had been drilled out and paid for, a
further 108 had been drilled out and not paid for, and Nevitt goes on to
refer to the number of rivets needing to be removed from the foundation ring,
firehole door, and smokebox tubeplate. He further reported that W. Crawley
(who was apparently carrying out the repairs) could not proceed until the
boiler was lifted completely out of the locomotive frames, and that he had
offered him £1 to do this work. We know that this work was undertaken, as
photographs exist of the locomotive by the shed at Snailbeach, with the
firebox completely removed and lying alongside the engine; and with the
smokebox tubeplate removed too. Work seems to have then virtually stopped.
However there does not seem to be any real substance to the claim that this
was because Driver–fitter Gatford did not like the engine. Hopes of resurrecting
Dennis still continued during the period of Stephens’ active management. In
1929 there was correspondence between Gatford and Tonbridge about firebox
repairs. This is the last mention we have of attempts to repair the
locomotive and hopes were probably terminated when Austen, with his more
pragmatic attitudes to the real need for the locomotive took over. 'Dennis'
remained dismantled until officially withdrawn in 1936 and its components
were recorded as sold for scrap in 1937. Skylark (No 2) This relatively small 0-4-2T No. 802 was built in 1902 to 2' 6" gauge. The dainty little ‘Skylark’ was the prototype of a Kerr Stuart standard class and had a varied career. She had been built for the contractor H Lovatt and Co for construction of the 2’ 6” gauge Leek and Manifold Light Railway. With that work finished in 1904 it passed to another contract in Salford docks and was sold in 1907. It then disappeared until 1914 when the Admiralty had it stored on Hoo Ness Island. It played its part In WW1 by working on the Ridham Dock Salvage Depot system operating on Edward Lloyds narrow gauge tracks from some time in 1917. It was still stored at Ridham in September 1920 but moved to storage at a Central Storage Depot at 31, Dog Lane, Neasden, London from where It was bought by dealers E C Cornforth sometime late in 1922. Cornforth were based at Kidsgrove, north of Stoke, who claimed to be rolling stock contractors and suppliers of locomotives, wagons, rails, passenger stock, steam excavators, steam cranes, hauling and winding engines, boilers and metals and advertised locomotives for sale between 1894 and 1924. They seem to have sub-contracted most engineering work. The Kerr Stuart was sold to Stephens on 11 December 1922 (before he formally took over the Snailbeach) and it was delivered to the Snailbeach on 10th March 1923 probably after re-gauging.
The Baldwins (Nos 3 & 4) The first was Baldwin 44383 built in
1916, refurbished by Bagnall in December1918-April 1919 and delivered to the
Snailbeach still carrying WD No 538. The second was Baldwin works number
44522 (not 44572 as frequently recorded) built in 1917, refurbished by
Bagnall in October-November 1918, and carrying WD No 722. On the Snailbeach
these locomotives were official numbered 3 and 4 respectively and carried these
numbers latterly. They could be told apart by No.4's being from a later batch
equipped with water lifting equipment and protective hoods over its cab front
spectacle plates. The two Baldwins are recorded as purchased in January 1923
from Messrs Learoyd & Son of Clapton, London, and delivered in April
1923. They carried Rebuilt Bagnall 1918 plates.
Snailbeach subsequently ordered spares
for the Baldwins in March 1926, February 1930, October 1934 and July 1935.
Spares were also obtained from the Ashover who ran (and cannibalised) similar
locomotives. The Bagnall October 1934 spares order is especially interesting
and reads 'General Order No.7904, Baldwin No.3 loco, built to 2' 0"
gauge, but adapted to 2' 3 ¾” gauge by drawing the tyres from the wheel
centres, flange alterations now desirable'. Presumably Bagnall had the wheels
and axles at Stafford for re-tyreing. This statement confirms the report in
The Locomotive magazine for October 1926 that the locomotives were adapted to
the Snailbeach track by the simple expedient of shifting the tyres outwards
on the wheel centres. This was a very cheap and unsatisfactory method that
nevertheless appears to have lasted for over ten years until Bagnall provided
new purpose-built tyres. All the Stephens’ purchases proved
effective and reliable on the Snailbeach and appear to have been used turn
and turn about without trouble until limited funds and manpower caused their
tubes to fail at the same time in the summer of 1946. With the satisfactory
substitution of a farm tractor on the only remaining active part of the
railway and then lease to Salop County Council they were never needed again
and succumbed to the scrapman, T W Ward, in May 1950. |
