Fire Queen

Fire Queen and Jenny Lind were the first locomotives of the Padarn Railway of the Dinorwic slate quarry in Wales.

History

The so-called Padarn Pailway was running along the Llyn Padarn railway connection between the actual Quarry and the company's own Port Donorwic in the village of Y Felinheli. Unlike the rest of the rail network of the quarry and the harbor, which had a track width of 22.75 inches ( 578 mm), the connecting length ( 1219 mm) was built in the gauge of 4 feet. This allowed it to carry four small cars with slate tiles on a trolley in piggyback mode.

The Padarn Railway was opened in the early 1840s, solving an older, built in 578 mm gauge railway connection from. At first, she was operated by horses, but in 1848 two steam locomotives were put into operation. They came from the company Horlock and Company, which has built before and after any other locomotives. In the quarry itself, ie to 578 mm gauge locomotives came only from about 1870 to use.

Fire Queen and Jenny Lind remained until the 1880s in use and were replaced by three built by Hunslet tank locomotives. Jenny Lind was scrapped in 1882, but Fire Queen survived in a parking shed, until 1969, the quarry has ceased operations.

Today, the Fire Queen is in Penrhyn Castle Museum. She is the only surviving locomotive of the Padarn Railway.

Technical Features

In addition to the rare track Fire Queen and Jenny Lind were unusual in their construction. Although they were designed as freight locomotives, they were based on the patent of Thomas Russell Crampton ( whose wife was a friend of the opera singer Jenny Lind ) and were probably also designed by him. Crampton's patent saw an arranged behind the firebox Treibradsatz relatively large diameter for high speeds before, but unlike the classic Crampton locomotives, the two Horlock machines had two Kuppelradsätze, the front wheel under the smoke chamber ran.

The resulting relatively large wheel base made ​​it possible to arrange the cylinder between the wheelsets inclined; the rods were restricted by the coupling rods. A framework did not have the locomotives; Cylinders and axles were attached directly to the boiler. The space thus gained allowed the use of a standard gauge boiler on the narrow-gauge locomotive. The control of the design Stephenson was driven from the front axle and - for the first time ever - operated via a control spindle. The feed pumps were, as it was common practice to mechanically driven via the cross heads. Inventories were housed on a two-axle Tender.