SCOTLAND c1876

Robin Barnes - Railway Art and History

Robin Barnes, Railway Art and History

The main business of Dick & Stevenson, of Airdrie in central Scotland, was the manufacture of mining machinery, but between 1864 and 1890 the firm completed something under thirty small four-coupled tank locomotives of distinctive appearance. Pictured here is one of two supplied to the Provenhall Collieries, near Glasgow, where loaded coal wagons had to be hauled up a gradient of 1 in 11. In the arrangement shown, the locomotive would climb on its own, at the top position itself on the four large diameter rollers, which it then rotated through friction. The rollers were geared to a central shaft set at right angles. This in turn rotated a large winding drum located beneath the structure visible in the foreground. By that means wagons would be hauled by cable to to the summit. The only known illustration is a diagrammatic representation, for which reason the painting is to a great extent conjectural. The exact identities of the two locomotives have not been established, while the apparatus itself, installed about 1875, probably functioned for only a limited period.
Robin Barnes, Railway Art and History  Robin Barnes, Railway Art and History
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The railway art may not be reproduced in any way without written permission from the artist.