Fairlie locomotive built for Burma Railways by the Vulcan Foundry Co.

Single fairlie Taliesin (left)

A Fairlie is a type of articulated steam locomotive that has the driving wheels on bogies. The locomotive may be double-ended (a double Fairlie) or single ended (a single Fairlie). Fairlies are most associated with the Ffestiniog Railway in Wales. Fairlie Type locomotive built for the Burma Railways by the Vulcan Foundry Co. ... Fairlie Type locomotive built for the Burma Railways by the Vulcan Foundry Co. ... Image File history File links Single fairlie Taliesin with ex-Penhryn Quarries Blanche at Tan-y-Bwlch station on the Ffestiniog Railway. ... Image File history File links Single fairlie Taliesin with ex-Penhryn Quarries Blanche at Tan-y-Bwlch station on the Ffestiniog Railway. ... An articulated locomotive is a steam locomotive with one or more engine units which can move relative to the main frame. ... Great Western Railway No. ... On a steam locomotive, a driving wheel is a powered wheel which is driven by the locomotives pistons (or turbine, in the case of a steam turbine locomotive). ... A bogie is a wheeled wagon or trolley. ... Double fairlie Merddyn Emrys with train Double Fairlie Earl of Merionedd at Tanybwlch At Blaenau Ffestiniog Minffordd Station Historic coaches, including 1897-built ex-Lynton and Barnstaple Railway no 14 (centre) at Tanybwlch. ... National motto: Cymru am byth (Welsh: Wales for ever) Waless location within the UK Official languages English, Welsh Capital Cardiff Largest city Cardiff First Minister Rhodri Morgan Area  - Total Ranked 3rd UK 20,779 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 3rd UK 2,903,085 140/km² Ethnicity: 97. ...

Overview

The Fairlie was invented and patented by the Scottish engineer Robert F. Fairlie in 1864. He had become convinced that the conventional pattern of locomotive was seriously deficient; they wasted weight on unpowered wheels (the maximum tractive effort a locomotive can exert is a function of the weight on its driving wheels) and on a tender that did nothing but carry fuel and water without contributing to the locomotive's adhesive weight. Furthermore, the standard locomotive had a front and back, and was not intended for prolonged driving in reverse, thus requiring a turntable or wye at every terminus. 1864 was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Tractive effort is the pulling force exerted, normally by a locomotive, though the term could also be used for anything else that hauls a load. ... On a steam locomotive, a driving wheel is a powered wheel which is driven by the locomotives pistons (or turbine, in the case of a steam turbine locomotive). ... A small turntable at the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, CA. In rail terminology, a turntable is a device used to turn railroad rolling stock. ... A wye in American railroad terminology, known as a triangle in British terminology, is a triangular shaped arrangement of tracks with a switch at each corner. ...

Fairlie's answer was a double-ended steam locomotive, carrying all its fuel and water aboard the locomotive and with every axle driven. The double-ended part was accomplished by having two boilers on the locomotive, joined back-to-back at the firebox ends, with the smokeboxes at the ends of the locomotive (looking fairly conventional, until you realise the locomotive is two-faced, Janus-like). In Fairlie's original design the boilers shared a common firebox, but with separate water spaces; it was found that this did not work as well as expected, and on later locomotives the fireboxes were partitioned into two. Great Western Railway No. ... A boiler is a closed vessel in which water or other fluid is heated under pressure. ... In a steam engine, the firebox is the area where the fuel is burned, producing heat to boil the water in the boiler. ... The smokebox (outlined in red) of Soo Line 1003. ... In Roman mythology, Janus was the god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings, and endings. ...

The locomotive driver (US: engineer) worked on one side of the locomotive, and the fireman on the other; the joined fireboxes separated them. There were, of course, controls at both ends of the central cab to allow the locomotive to be driven equally well in both directions. The term Fireman can refer to: A firefighter. ...

Underneath, the locomotive was supported on two swivelling powered bogies (US: trucks), with all wheels driven; smaller locomotives had four-wheel bogies, while larger had six-wheel. The cylinders on each power bogie pointed outward, towards the locomotive end. Steam was delivered to the cylinders via flexible tubing. Couplers and buffers (where fitted) were sometimes mounted on the bogies, not on the locomotive frame, so that they swivelled with the curvature of the track. A piston and cylinder from a steam engine A cylinder in an internal combustion engine is the space within which a piston travels. ... Knuckle couplers in use. ...

Fuel and water were carried on the locomotive, in the form of side tanks beside each boiler for the water, and bunkers for the fuel above them.

Early Fairlie locomotives were rather unsuccessful, examples being built for the Neath and Brecon Railway and for the Queensland Railways in Australia being notably unsuccessful, in the latter case resulting in locomotives being returned to the builder. However, in 1869 Fairlie's company built a locomotive, named Little Wonder (Fairlie was not an individual given to modesty) for the Festiniog Railway (later renamed Ffestiniog), a slate hauler in north Wales, and this one proved to be an outstanding success. Particularly important for a narrow gauge line as small as the Festiniog, whose gauge was the minuscule one of 1 ft 11½ in, was the fact that the Fairlie design meant that the fireboxes and ashpans were not restricted by frame or track width, but only by the overall loading gauge. Little Wonder was such a success that Fairlie offered the Festiniog management a perpetual license to use the Fairlie patent without restriction in return for using the line and the success of its Fairlie locomotives in his publicity. The Ffestiniog, indeed, still uses Fairlie patent locomotives to this day; it has owned seven, of which four are still in running condition. The most recent Fairlie locomotives, Earl of Meirioneth and David Lloyd George, were built in 1979 and 1992 respectively. 1869 is a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Double fairlie Merddyn Emrys with train Double Fairlie Earl of Merionedd at Tanybwlch At Blaenau Ffestiniog Minffordd Station Historic coaches, including 1897-built ex-Lynton and Barnstaple Railway no 14 (centre) at Tanybwlch. ... Slate Slate is a fine-grained, homogeneous, sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash which has been metamorphosed (foliated) in layers (bedded deposits). ... National motto: Cymru am byth (Welsh: Wales for ever) Waless location within the UK Official languages English, Welsh Capital Cardiff Largest city Cardiff First Minister Rhodri Morgan Area  - Total Ranked 3rd UK 20,779 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 3rd UK 2,903,085 140/km² Ethnicity: 97. ... A foot (plural: feet) is a non-SI unit of distance or length, measuring around a third of a metre. ... Mid-19th century tool for converting between different standards of the inch An inch is an Imperial and U.S. customary unit of length. ... In a steam engine, the firebox is the area where the fuel is burned, producing heat to boil the water in the boiler. ... A loading gauge is the envelope or contoured shape within which all railway vehicles, engines, coaches, and trucks must fit. ... This page refers to the year 1979. ... 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ...

Armed with this success, Fairlie sold his invention (and the concept of the narrow gauge railway on which it was based) around the world. Locomotives were built for many British colonies, for Imperial Russia, and even one example for the United States.

The locomotive sold in the US was ordered for the newly built Denver and Rio Grande Railroad in 1872, and was a smaller locomotive with four-wheel bogies, giving it an 0-4-0+0-4-0 configuration. The railroad's experience with the locomotive was typical, and an indication of the fact that, though Fairlie had eliminated several problems of the conventional locomotive, he had introduced new ones of his own. Categories: Rail stubs | Defunct railroad companies of the United States | Colorado railroads | New Mexico railroads | Utah railroads ... 1872 was a leap year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 0-4-0 represents one of the simplest possible types, that with two axles and four wheels, all of which are driven. ...

Most critical was the absence of a tender, meaning that the capacity for fuel and water was very small. A locomotive is already a crowded place, and Fairlie's design gave even less room to place its supplies than a normal tank locomotive, which at least has a space behind the driver's cab to fill. Moreover, the central position of the cab meant that it was hard to add a tender later. As was later the case with Bulleid's Leader class locomotives, limited fuel supplies would not have been a problem if oil had been used as a fuel instead of coal. A British tender locomotive Steam locomotives often haul a tender, which is a special railroad car designed to hold the locomotives fuel and water. ... A tank locomotive (occasionally tank engine) is a steam locomotive that carries its own fuel and water with it, instead of pulling it behind it in a tender. ...

Also problematic were the flexible steam pipes to and from the cylinders of each swivelling engine; they were prone to leakage and wasting of power.

The final problem lay in the power bogies; there was a good reason for unpowered wheels on a steam locomotive, in that they served a function of stabilising the locomotive, reducing its tendency to wander or 'hunt' when rolling on straight track, and leading the locomotive into curves and thereby reducing derailments. Fairlies had a tendency to be rough-riding, rough on the track they rode, and more prone to derailment than they should have been.

The only really successful uses of the Fairlie locomotive, other than on the Ffestiniog Railway, were in New Zealand and on a mountainous stretch of the Ferrocaril Mexicano's line between Mexico City and Veracruz, where a total of 49 enormous 0-6-0+0-6-0 Fairlies weighing about 125 tons apiece, imported from England and the largest and most powerful locomotives built there up to that point, were used until the line was electrified in the 1920s. Mexico City (Spanish: Ciudad de México) is the name of a megacity located in the Valley of Mexico (Valle de México), a large valley in the high plateaus (altiplano) at the center of Mexico, about 2,240 metres (7,349 feet) above sea-level, surrounded on most sides... Veracruz is the name of a city and a state in Mexico. ... The word ton or tonne is derived from the Old English tunne, and ultimately from the Old French tonne, and referred originally to a large cask with a capacity of 252 wine gallons, which holds approximately 2100 pounds of water. ... Sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or primarily in North America and in Australia as the Roaring Twenties . In Europe it is sometimes refered to as the Golden Twenties. ...

A variation of the Fairlie that enjoyed some popularity, especially in the United States, was the single Fairlie, essentially half a double Fairlie, with one boiler, a cab at one end, and a single articulated power bogie combined with an unpowered bogie under the cab. This design abandoned the bidirectional nature of the double Fairlie but gained back the ability to have a large bunker and water tank behind the cab, and the possibility of using a trailing tender if necessary. The single conventional boiler made maintenance cheaper and did away with the crew's separation. A fair number were built, especially by Fairlie's licensee in the United States, William Mason, who built 146 or so Mason Bogies. Alternate meanings: See Fairlie (disambiguation) Fairlie Type locomotive built for the Burma Railways by the Vulcan Foundry Co. ... The , an 1874 0-6-6 Mason Bogie and the first locomotive with Walschaerts valve gear built in the United States. ...

Fairlie's vision was limited by the limitations of the steam locomotive — its thirst for water and the unbalancing forces of its directly driving pistons – but he did successfully anticipate the form of locomotives for the future. The vast majority of diesel and electric locomotives in the world today follow a form not too dissimilar from Fairlies — two power trucks with all axles driven, and a huge number follow Fairlie's idea of being double-ended, capable of being driven equally well in both directions. Some inventors are limited by the available technology of their day, and it could be said that Fairlie was one. Great Western Railway No. ... East German E 18 electric locomotives of the Deutsche Reichsbahn An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electric motors which draws current from an overhead wire, a third rail, or an on-board storage device such as a battery or a flywheel energy storage system. ...

To see an operating Fairlie today, one must go to Wales and visit the Ffestiniog Railway. Nowhere else in the world do these unique locomotives still run, though two are preserved in New Zealand's South Island: Josephine, a double Fairlie, at Dunedin, and R28, a single Fairlie, at Reefton. One of the Ffestiniog locos, Merddin Emrys, is an 1879 product of the Ffestiniog's own Boston Lodge workshops, and is still going strong over 120 years later. National motto: Cymru am byth (Welsh: Wales for ever) Waless location within the UK Official languages English, Welsh Capital Cardiff Largest city Cardiff First Minister Rhodri Morgan Area  - Total Ranked 3rd UK 20,779 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 3rd UK 2,903,085 140/km² Ethnicity: 97. ... Double fairlie Merddyn Emrys with train Double Fairlie Earl of Merionedd at Tanybwlch At Blaenau Ffestiniog Minffordd Station Historic coaches, including 1897-built ex-Lynton and Barnstaple Railway no 14 (centre) at Tanybwlch. ... 1879 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Boston Lodge is situated on the A487 about 1 mile SE across the Afon Glaslyn causeway from Porthmadog, Gwynedd in north-west Wales. ...