
Beyer Peacock order
No. 3175 WP No. 1416 "Loch" built in 1874 for
the Isle of Man Railway and still in service. |
The First Engines
Beyers reputation must
have stood remarkably high, for the first order for engines was
received from the East Indian Railway (Order No. 25) before any
part of the works had been built. The first engine actually completed
at Gorton Foundry was one of eight 2-2-2 tender engines for the
Great
Western Railway (Order
No. 5) to Gooch's design for their standard gauge. This engine
left the works on 21 July 1855 and cost £2,660.
Beyer designed the new works
himself, and built many of the machine tools to equip it. Beyer
Peacock continued to build machine tools for the greater part
of their history, supplying lathes, etc. to the railways where
they sent their engines, but these are outside the scope of this
brief history.
From 1856 until they closed
in 1966, Bayer, Peacock took a photograph of nearly every type
of engine which they built, and the surviving negatives are part
of the Museum of Science and Industry collection. The Edinburgh
and Glasgow 2-2-2
tender (66) was the first engine to be photographed, and the
General Arrangement and other detail drawings are preserved.
The photograph of a 2-4-0 tender engine for the Swedish
Government Railway
(97) is a recent copy taken from the oldest surviving negative
of 1856.
Very soon a number of almost
standard engine designs appeared. The Edinburgh & Glasgow
2-2-2 and the D.
Luiz for the South Eastern of Portugal (629) were similar but built for different gauges.
This later engine was exhibited at the International Exhibition
of 1862 in London, where it was awarded a bronze medal. Beyer,
Peacock were justly proud of this achievement, partly because
it marked the firm establishment of Gorton Foundry. Both these
engines proved to have the excellent design and workmanship for
which Beyer, Peacock soon became noted, for the E. & G. engines
worked for over fifty years and the D. Luiz remained in service
for over 65 years and is now preserved in Portugal.
We have seen how Bayer, Peacock
built engines to other peoples designs, like the engines
for the Great Western Railway. For a long time the firm had a
close association with Joseph Beattie, the Locomotive Superintendent
of the London
& South Western Railway.
Beyer, Peacock built for him some early experimental coal - burning
engines ( for these first engines burnt coke to lessen the smoke),
with boilers to Beattie's own design, although the engines had
many Beyer, Peacock features. Some of the Beattie
well tanks (649),
which until recently worked between Wadebridge and Bodmin in
Cornwall, were built by Beyer, Peacock, the first engine of this
class being completed in 1862. |
Hermann Lange joins
the firm
In 1861 Beyer invited Hermann
Ludwig Lange (1837 - 1892), who was born in the same town in
Saxony, to come to Gorton. In 1865 Lange became Chief Draughtsman
and on Beyer's death on 2 June 1876 he became Chief Engineer,
which he remained until his own death on 14 January 1892. The
engine designs of this period must be seen as the work of these
two men who collaborated closely, the younger carrying on where
the older left off. One Such example was the 4-4-0 condensing
tank engines (773) which were built in 1864 for the Metropolitan
Railway of the London
Underground, where they were very successful and one engine is
preserved in London. These engines were developed from a 2-4-0
tender engine (621) for the Tudela
& Bilbao Railway,
which was followed in the same year, 1862, by the first 4-4-0
design (626) for the same Company. The inclined cylinders and
front bogies became almost a Beyer, Peacock trademark, for the
design proved remarkably successful with a variety of wheel arrangements
in both tank and tender forms. It was particularly suitable for
narrow gauges, and fifteen out of eighteen engines in the Isle
of Man Railway were
built by Beyer, Peacock on the same pattern beginning in 1873
(2965), the last being completed in 1926 (144). |
Engines for Export
Beyer, Peacock exported the
greater part of their production. For example, in 1863 the Dutch
State Railway ordered
four 2-2-2s (750). A 2-4-0 built in 1864 travelled nearly a million
miles before it was withdrawn for preservation in 1913, and can
still be seen at the Railway Museum in Utrecht. Between 1863
and 1922, Beyer, Peacock built 666 engines for Holland, one of
the most famous and long - lasting designs being 2-4-0. The first
of these was built in 1863 (761) similar to some engines built
for the Midland Railway in England. A more powerful design was
produced in 1865, of which 74 locomotives were built and between
1873 and 1879 fifty engines with the same wheel arrangement but
with outside cylinders were constructed (2848). In 1880, there
was a reversion to inside cylinders because the other type was
not so steady as had been hoped. 175 engines of this type (3878)
were ultimately built which were the largest engines with this
wheel arrangement in Europe at the time of construction, and
became a standard engine for both goods and passenger work, in
spite of their 7ft dia. driving wheels. One of these engines
also is preserve at Utrecht. This design was enlarged in 1899
into 4-4-0 (0446), of which 135 were built, and then further
extended into an Atlantic (8458), of which five were built in
1900. Although in 1910 Gorton Foundry delivered 36 4-6-0 engines
(069) for express work, these engines probably had a different
parentage. In addition there were many shunting and tank engines
built by Beyer, Peacock for Holland.
A country with which Beyer,
Peacock maintained an even longer association was Ireland. Beginning
in 1858 with an order from the Dublin & Drogheda Railway
for two 0-4-2 tank engines (225) and for an outside cylinder
tank engine for the County Down Railway (145), Beyer, Peacock
continued building engines for the successors of these railways,
the Great Northern Railway
and the Belfast and County Down Railway, until the end of the
steam era. Leinster (729) was an express engine for the Ulster
Railway (which was amalgamated later into the Great Northern
Railway) and was one of the earliest of a series of 2-4-0s built
for the Great Northern Railway. In 1885 the first of the 4-4-0
express passenger engines was delivered (6466), in 1913 a superheated
class "S" was built (0471), and the last ones were
sent across the sea in 1948 (1558). While considering countries
which had a long association with Beyer, Peacock, it is interesting
to note that in 1875 the Cape Government Railway ordered a 2-6-0
tender engine (3355) which was the first of many orders from
South Africa, where the Beyer Garratts were to be so remarkably
successful in later years. |
Taken from A Short
History of Beyer, Peacock by Dr. R.L. Hills |
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