‘QUARRY HUNSLETS’: PART 2
Not all ‘Quarry Hunslets’ were created equal… THOMAS BRIGHT concludes his look at one of Britain’s greatest narrow gauge designs by exploring some of the more unusual types.
Living with the oddballs of the fleet
In the previous edition of Steam Railway, we explored what many consider to be the archetypal ‘Quarry Hunslets’: the ‘Alices’ and their equivalents. Although originally designed as mere shunting engines, these diminutive locomotives have proven themselves capable of handling just about anything the preservation scene can throw at them, cementing their status as one of Britain’s finest narrow gauge designs.
But perhaps one of the most notable aspects of the ‘Quarry Hunslets’ was the design’s adaptability and versatility. Its basic elements could be reconfigured to work as a small, lightweight shunting engine or as a long-distance load-puller – and various points in between.
‘Y GENOD’
Nowhere is that adaptability more evident than on the ‘Penrhyn Ladies’ – Linda and Blanche. Alongside their predecessor, 1882-built Charles, the trio were the largest ‘Quarry Hunslets’ ever built.
With their long wheelbases, large inclined cylinders and actual cabs (most ‘Quarry Hunslets’ had to make do with just an open footplate), they bear but a passing resemblance to their smaller cousins. Nevertheless, they are true ‘Quarry Hunslets’, as they were designed to haul heavy slate trains on the six-mile Penrhyn Quarry ‘main line’ – where they were known as ‘Y Genod’ (Welsh for ‘the girls’) – between the workings and Port Penrhyn on the Menai Strait.
While Charles has been preserved in more or less original condition at the Penrhyn Castle Industrial Railway Museum, Linda and Blanche were purchased by the Ffestiniog Railway in 1962/63, to provide motive power at a time when the FR was enduring a severe locomotive shortage. Here they were adapted again to suit the FR’s traffic requirements, first gaining rudimentary (later proper) tenders to increase coal capacity, followed by the addition of a leading pony truck to ostensibly improve the ride and rail-holding characteristics.
As a result, what were once 0-4-0STs became 2-4-0STTs and both have been stalwart members of the FR fleet for over 50 years. As author and narrow gauge expert Michael Whitehouse concludes: “Very probably, these two locomotives were the best purchases the FR has ever made. Sixty-nine years old when they arrived, they both proved themselves sure-footed, useful and popular motive power for all but the heaviest trains.
“By the time they reached their centenary [in 1993], they had been responsible for more than a third of the locomotive mileage recorded since the beginning of the revival years.”
‘FANTASTICALLY FUNCTIONAL’
Possibly the most distinctive feature of Charles, Linda and Blanche is the cylinders. Whereas those on most ‘Quarry Hunslets’ measure 7in by 10in (see table), the cylinders on the ‘Penrhyn Ladies’ are relatively massive – 10½in by 12in (Charles’ were half an inch narrower).
This gave them enough power to haul heavy slate trains, but in order to keep the overall width down (despite their bulk, the Penrhyn ‘main liners’ are only three inches wider than an ‘Alice’), the connecting rod from the crosshead to the crankpin on the driving axle is unusually placed inside the coupling rod; normal practice – as seen on the other ‘Quarry Hunslet’ designs – is to have the connecting rod outside the coupling rod. Because of this arrangement, the cylinders are inclined at 1-in-6 to provide enough clearance for the crank pins, giving Charles, Linda and Blanche a unique appearance, setting them apart from other ‘Quarry Hunslets’.
The ‘Penrhyn Ladies’ are also popular among F&WHR crews; Boston Lodge locomotive manager Phil Brown says: “You can guarantee we’ll get crews when we put those two on the roster. A lot of the appeal is the racket they make because they’re working far harder than they were ever designed to. They’re also fantastically functional and ergonomic – you just get on and everything is exactly where you expect it to be.
“They were definitely a really useful purchase at the time and they’re still useful now, but our trains are getting longer and heavier so, whereas the double Fairlies can handle eight-coach trains, Linda and Blanche can only really handle seven. They were perfect at the time and it’s only in the last few years that they’ve started to fall by the wayside.”
Despite their diminished role on the FR, the pair are playing an integral role on the line’s post-lockdown services, alongside the George England 0-4-0STTs Prince, Palmerston and Welsh Pony, so they remain an important part of the FR’s motive power fleet.
One person who knows these engines better than most is Rob Coulson. Not only is he a fitter at Boston Lodge, but he’s also one of Linda and Blanche’s regular drivers. He also co-owns Britomart, which we featured in Part One.
Rob says: “You’ve got to remember that the double Fairlies were designed specifically for the Ffestiniog, so they’re never really tested, but the ‘Ladies’ get absolutely caned because they’re working right at their limit.”
For that reason, the ‘Ladies’ are definitely a challenge to both drive and fire but that, says Rob, is part of their appeal: “There is nothing better than driving a Penrhyn engine on a wet October day because you are fighting with it all the way. If it starts to slip, you’ll lose one, maybe one-and-a-half, miles an hour and you’ll never get it back, so the trick is to maintain a steady, even speed all the way and you’ll get there alright, but it’s hard to do!”
ARRESTING PROGRESS
Perhaps their biggest foible is the spark arrestor. Neither Linda nor Blanche was fitted with one when working at Penrhyn, but when the pair’s 1970s-fitted oil-firing equipment was removed at the turn of the last decade owing to the steep rise in oil prices and they were converted back to coal, spark arrestors were fitted to prevent spark-throwing and consequent lineside fires – something the ‘Ladies’ were particularly prone to do given how hard they were working at the FR – but these can generate all sorts of problems on the move.
Rob says: “Both the Penrhyn engines have been fitted in preservation with a pilot valve, so when you set off, you’ve got to be at least two or three notches up on the reverser before you go into main valve, otherwise it’ll just pull the fire to pieces and you’ll clog the spark arrestor.
“You’ve got to keep a very close eye on your exhaust. If you chuck a round on and you don’t see the usual black puff from the chimney, you’ve got a clogged spark arrestor, so it is best to stop as soon as you safely can and scrape it clean while you’ve still got 160psi on the clock, rather than persevering until you’re out of steam and you have to stop even longer for a blow-up.”
Unlike their smaller counterparts, both Linda and Blanche have brick arches in their fireboxes which, in addition to protecting the tubeplate from cold air shocks when firing on the move, “form a useful part of the spark arresting system because they break up all the little bits before they pass through the tubes,” says Phil.
Adds Rob: “You can’t just chuck a massive fire in, otherwise they won’t work properly. They like a nice even fire, slightly stepped up at the back, but you’ve got to have a wedge-shaped fire anyway because the brick arch gets in the way.
“The fireboxes are really the wrong shape, as they’re wider than they are long; you can touch the tubeplate with the shovel blade and the wooden handle will be well clear of the flames!
“It’s definitely a ‘little-and-often’ job, and you’ve got to keep your eye on the exhaust. What you want is nice, light grey haze; as soon as you get a clear exhaust, you’ve got cold air coming through and they just won’t steam. You’ve always got to remember that they’re working at 200% of what they were designed to do.”
Phil concurs: “Because you’re working more or less at their limit, if you miss a round by, say, 30 seconds, you’re stymied, and you’ll start to see things go wrong. Speed makes a big difference because if you’re working at 17mph, you’ll be alright and you can recover fairly easily, but if you’re doing 20mph, you can be in trouble.”
Speed also makes a big difference to ride quality. Rob says: “When you’re running through the woods at 20mph, it’s like being ejected from a fighter jet many times a second – it’s a proper assault on the senses.”
LITTLE DIFFERENCES
Talking of assaults on the senses, Blanche’s safety valve is another. Linda still retains its original Ramsbottom item, whereas Blanche has been fitted with a Ross ‘Pop’ safety valve “so you don’t get any warning when it’s going to lift, you just get this enormous explosion right by your head,” says Rob. “If you’ve got your lunch on the brass bezel, it’ll get sucked up the exhaust shroud and scattered to the four winds. I’ve lost many a pasty that way…”
Aside from the safety valves, there are other differences in the way Linda and Blanche steam.
Rob says: “Blanche is not as powerful as Linda. Everyone says this is because Blanche has piston valves, which are supposedly restrictive, whereas Linda still has its original slide valves, but that’s rubbish.
“The main reason is that Linda’s cylinders are original and have been re-bored a fair few times, so they’re actually a quarter of an inch wider than those on
Blanche, which gives Linda 5% more tractive effort over Blanche. At 20mph, Linda’s cylinders displace 53,352 cubic inches more steam in 60 seconds than Blanche, which also affects the draughting, and the more air you can get through the fire, the hotter it burns. And Linda has a slightly bigger grate as well.
“Plus, Blanche has thicker firebox plates, whereas Linda’s are older and therefore thinner, so the fire is closer to the water and makes more steam.
“When people go on about the ‘Ladies’ being ‘the same, only the cylinders are different’, they’re not. All these little differences add up. If they were run at 10mph, it wouldn’t really be noticeable, but at 20 it’s a whole different ball game! If you try and run Blanche as fast as Linda, all you’ll do is block the spark arrestor.”
Despite being the better steamer, “I prefer Blanche because Linda chews its valve gear up like there’s no tomorrow,” says Rob. “Because of the load going through it, the linkage has to work all the harder, whereas Blanche is not always trying to wreck itself; she’s much more settled.
“That said, I think Linda has the best vacuum ejectors, whereas Blanche probably has the worst – it’s like putting a tap on the bottom of the boiler and letting all the water out. When you’re at a stand and you knock it on, you can physically see the water level in the boiler drop, but that’s because it’s really designed for a standard gauge loco. It’s very good when you’re shunting though.”
PONY RIDE
Before we move on and look at the Ffestiniog’s other Hunslets, we ought to explore perhaps the ‘Penrhyn Ladies’ most notable modification – the pony trucks.
Linda was pressed immediately into service upon arrival from Penrhyn in July 1962, often double-heading with Prince. On September 5 that year, Linda jumped off the track above Cutting Budr near Plas Halt and was
You can touch the tubeplate with the shovel blade ROB COULSON, F&WHR FITTER & DRIVER
only prevented from tumbling down the embankment by the coupling joining it to Prince.
The main cause was the discrepancy between the Penrhyn gauge of 1ft 10¾in and the FR’s 1ft 11½in gauge – something the railway had not realised in its haste in putting Linda into traffic – but this infamous episode, colloquially known as ‘Linda’s Leap’, directly led to the addition of leading pony trucks on both Linda and Blanche.
However, says Rob: “The pony trucks were just a knee-jerk reaction. They weren’t even properly geometrically designed – our then general manager Allan Garraway dictated that they must line up with the chimneys, otherwise they wouldn’t look right. All the pony trucks have done is reduce grip.
“Linda’s accident was a combination of the dodgy track we had at the time and Linda’s knackered axleboxes, so it used to hunt about all the time – plus the gauge discrepancy. Because the track is much better now, we could actually run them without the pony trucks, but they’d look weird because they’ve got the frame extensions at the front – but it wouldn’t be impossible to sort out.”
HUNSLET ON STEROIDS
“If a standard ‘Quarry Hunslet’ is a Rolls Royce, then Jerry M is an Aston Martin!” So says Rob Gambrill, trustee of the Hollycombe Steam Collection in Hampshire, where Hunslet Works No. 638 has been based almost continuously since it was rescued from Dinorwic in 1966.
Jerry M – like its other ‘Mills/Tramroad’ classmate Cackler – is a ‘Quarry Hunslet’ on steroids. They were built not for shunting in the quarry galleries, but for transferring loaded slate trucks between the slate mills at the base of the inclines at Hafod Owen, for a mile along the shores of Llyn Peris, to the transhipment sidings at Gilfach Ddu, where the trucks were loaded onto transporter wagons and taken over the 4ft gauge Padarn Railway to Port Dinorwic.
Originally named Vaenol – after the estate on which the Assheton-Smith family, which owned Dinorwic quarry, lived – Jerry M spent the entirety of its working life ferrying slate back and forth on the one-mile PerisPadarn Tramway. While the ‘Alices’, for example, are now often an amalgamation of their classmates owing to extensive part-swapping during their working lives (much of Maid Marian is actually King of the Scarlets for instance), because of its unusual size, Jerry M “remains largely as built, as she couldn’t give parts to other engines during repair,” says Rob. “In my view, she is by far the most original, with 80% of what you see today being Hunslet still.
“She was saved early in the quarry sales era and remained in a good shed and wasn’t subject to theft, and the nature of Hollycombe’s operation has also meant little has been altered on her either; all her platework is original, for example,” he adds.
Jerry M’s saddle tank dates from 1955 when its
original riveted example was changed for a welded one built in the quarry’s workshops and, despite its age, “is in fine fettle”. In a strange quirk of fate, when the new tank was fitted, the sandboxes were removed, along with the tank filler lid, so the ones you see on the engine today are reproductions. However, the original lid has since been reunited with the engine, having turned up during Jerry M’s visit to the Ffestiniog Railway for the ‘Hunslet 125’ event in 2018.
Given its unusual size, it is perhaps not surprising that Jerry M “is a very different beast from all the others,” states Rob. “It is quite remarkable just how different she is in many ways to all the other similar engines. For example, from new, she was fitted with very large injectors nearly twice the size of the small engines, so the rate that she feeds water into the boiler is much faster than the smaller engines.
“This, we suppose, was because she was designed for the mills tramway; she would trundle along and then effectively shunt trucks, meaning most likely the boiler was filled during the long periods she stood around. The large injectors mean she is tricky on long runs as they easily overwhelm the boiler.”
The boiler in Jerry M today is one of the few parts that isn’t authentic, its life-expired original having been replaced with an all-new welded example built by nearby engineering firm A.G. Bicknells during the Hunslet’s restoration in 1981/2. Jerry M originally had a working pressure of 120lb/sq in, but the new boiler has been increased to 140lb/sq in. Despite this, “she still struggles to maintain steam on longer runs against the massive injectors,” says Rob. “The new welded boiler is also slightly smaller in the firebox department, which makes a difference.”
If anything, Jerry M has to work harder at Hollycombe than it ever did at Dinorwic; the 1½ mile running line is 50% longer than the tramway for which Jerry M and Cackler were built, and whereas that line was broadly level, Hollycombe boasts gradients as steep as 1-in-35. But despite the smaller firebox and tricky injectors,
Jerry M manages its duties at Hollycombe “with ease,” says Rob. “She loves a hard, working day.”
Rob describes Jerry M as a “sporting engine. With 2ft driving wheels and the bigger cylinders, she loves to really get going; we have clocked her at the Ffestiniog Railway at 25mph with quarter regulator, two notches back.
“Jerry M is much more powerful than a standard quarry tank,” he adds. “Britomart and Edward Sholto have hauled trains at Hollycombe; they managed it, but they were at their limit without any reserve power. [2005-built] Jack Lane out-performed them and did a really good job of pulling trains when it came here, showing just how good they are when new.”
With Cackler incarcerated inside the Thursford Collection in Norfolk for the foreseeable future, Jerry M
Jerry M is much more powerful than a standard quarry tank ROB GAMBRILL, HOLLYCOMBE TRUSTEE
remains the only operational ‘Mills/Tramroad’ Hunslet in Britain. Alas, it is shortly due for another ‘ten-year’ overhaul, but it shouldn’t be out of action for too long, needing new tyres, motion work, a boiler re-tube, stay work and new cast steam pipes. “There are a few other minor bits as well, but all this should be completed for the following season,” says Rob.
‘THUMPINGLY POWERFUL’
The only other ‘Quarry Hunslet’ comparable in size to Jerry M and Cackler is Lilla. Although it shares many of its dimensions with the ‘Mills/Tramroad’ engines, it was built to a unique size and remains a one-off.
It is also unusual in being a ‘Quarry Hunslet’ that was not built for either Dinorwic or Penrhyn; it was ordered in 1891 for the Cilgwyn Quarry at Nantlle, west of Rhyd-Ddu on the Welsh Highland Railway, and was primarily used to transport slate waste from the mills via a mile-long tramway round the quarry’s famous horseshoe curve to the slate tips. It was transferred to Penrhyn in 1928 and continued working in the galleries until 1955.
“The big difference between Lilla and the ‘Mills’ engines,” says Rob Coulson, “is that Cackler and
Jerry M’s frames drop underneath the footplate so the cab could be reduced in height; otherwise, they’re more or less the same.”
It may be an otherwise standard Hunslet design, but Lilla nonetheless has its own share of quirks. “It’s a wonderful thing, a real contraption,” says Rob.
“It’s got a standard Hunslet cab layout, but the handbrake is behind you so you’re forever bumping into things. When you go to stop, your hand automatically reaches forwards like on other Hunslets and then you realise you’ve got to turn around – but by then you’ve already knocked into something!
“Driving Lilla, you’ve got to really wrench at the regulator to move it, but once you’re up and running, it eases up. At about 70-80psi, it’s really nice to drive, but as soon as you get to around 100psi, the regulator becomes digital – it’s either on or off. But it’s a thumpingly powerful engine.”
THE HYBRID HUNSLET
It would be remiss to conclude our celebration of ‘Quarry Hunslets’ without exploring two of the oddest survivors – Elin and Pamela.
With its high-pitched boiler, unusual cab and rounded saddle tank, Pamela looks more outwardly akin to Kerr, Stuart ‘Tattoo’ 0-4-2ST Stanhope, with which it worked at Penrhyn, than a ‘Quarry Hunslet’. However, when outshopped in 1906 as ‘Large Quarry’ Works No. 920, Pamela would have closely resembled its immediate successor and classmate, Works No. 921 Sybil Mary.
In 1952, after suffering boiler problems for many years, the quarry took the rather drastic step of replacing Pamela’s boiler – not with one from another Hunslet but from a completely different engine: Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0WT Works No. 1643 Bronllwyd which, in addition to the fitting of a new saddle tank and parts of Bronllwyd’s cab, completely altered its appearance.
Withdrawn in 1958, it passed into the hands of John Vernon and ran on his private railway at Newbold Verdon in Leicestershire until 1984, when Gerald Cannon visited with well-known locomotive engineer (and now owner of ex-Penrhyn Avonside 0-4-0T Ogwen) Martyn Ashworth with a view to purchasing Pamela.
“Martyn was able to give a no-holds-barred report on
Pamela’s condition, so I was left in no doubt that it was going to be an uphill struggle to restore her. There were lots of things wrong with the previous restoration, not least the square biscuit tin firebox within the confines of a rounded corner outer wrapper, not to mention some domestic plumbing fittings used in the cab!”
Despite Pamela’s problems, Gerald bought it and owned the Hunslet/Hudswell Clarke hybrid until 2012, when he sold it to the Old Kiln Light Railway. Alas, Gerald’s operational experience of Pamela is somewhat limited, as it hasn’t steamed since 1984.
“What I can say is that, with the Hudswell Clarke boiler sitting higher in the frames than the conventional Hunslet one, there is a lot more space under the boiler to get at the internal motion for maintenance. Also, the firebox is longer at around two feet, as opposed to the ridiculously short ones on conventional Hunslets. The injectors on Pamela are hung under the water tank, as opposed to mounted on the backhead as on normal Hunslets, which are often somewhat temperamental to start owing to overheating.”
Few – if anyone – alive today can say with any degree of authority what Pamela is like to drive and fire, so if you want to see this oddball Hunslet back in steam, donations to the Old Kiln Light Railway would be gratefully received.
QUIRKY QUARRY
The other oddball ‘Quarry Hunslet’ is 1899-built Works No. 705 Elin. As originally built, it would have looked much like the other surviving ‘Small Quarries’ – Margaret, Alan George and Nesta – but, in 1938, its boiler was condemned and was replaced with one built by Marshall, Sons & Co. of Gainsborough. While the firm had experience building portables and traction engines, it had never built a railway locomotive, so why was the company was chosen over Hunslet or the other established manufacturers?
The Penrhyn Quarry Railway Society’s historian Eric Foulkes says: “At the beginning of the Second World War, the Government swamped the usual locomotive and boiler businesses with orders ahead of the proposed attack on France in the following year, under orders which, I understand, said ‘continue building vehicles until we tell you to stop!’ This meant that Elin’s boiler was built by Marshall’s rather than any of the usual squad.”
Purchased for £80 in September 1938, Elin’s new boiler “was in fact a stationary boiler and needed a new firebox to be hand-made at Penrhyn, with the design, apparently, once fitted to lorries and used on the roads,” says Eric.
In addition to a new smokebox and a chimney believed to have come from a Bagnall, the rebuilt Elin entered service in February 1939. However, the numerous modifications “soon developed various leaks, insufficient to stop the loco, but which apparently sprayed onto the crew!”
Today owned by Jeremy Martin and based at his private Richmond Light Railway in Kent, Elin is expected to return to steam in its as-modified guise next year.
‘IF IT AIN’T BROKE…’
What was Britain’s greatest narrow gauge locomotive design? There are countless contenders but, arguably, Britain’s most outstanding narrow gauge locomotives were the ‘Quarry Hunslets’.
If streamlined ‘Duchesses’ or air-smoothed ‘Merchant
Navies’ are the ultimate expression of a steam locomotive, ‘Quarry Hunslets’ are the essence; they take the locomotive’s basic elements and distil them into a small but perfectly formed package.
So ideal was that basic design that Hunslet continued building them for over 60 years; aside from detail differences, last-built Michael is recognisably cut from the same cloth as Gwynedd,
49 years its senior.
And while most narrow gauge locomotives were designed for specific railways and operating conditions, and therefore would not necessarily be successful elsewhere, the ‘Quarry Hunslets’ have proved themselves to be versatile, reliable locomotives, and the design’s almost complete survival into preservation and their continued widespread usage is testament to their longevity and undying popularity.
Yet, despite their small size and basic nature, they’re pulling heavier trains over longer distances, and performing duties for which they were never designed, nor intended, with aplomb. That we have also repatriated all those exported overseas and are continuing to build new examples in the 21st Century further demonstrates the high regard in which these engines are held.
So, are ‘Quarry Hunslets’ Britain’s greatest narrow gauge locomotives? We’ll let you decide that one.