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Lot Essay
The Prototype
The prototype Earl of Airlie was built in 1833 and went into service in September of that year as the first locomotive to be supplied for the Dundee and Newtyle Railway (opened in 1832) and was joined in the same month by a similar example named Lord Wharncliffe. A third locomotive was added to stock in 1834 but it is not known to the writer how similar this one may have been to the first two. The most distinctive feature of the design is the vertical cylinder arrangement driving the leading single driving wheels via very large bell-crank levers pivoted well above the framing and very well represented on the model. A further point of interest is that Dundee and Newtyle Railway was originally built to 4ft 6in. gauge.
At the time the prototype was built, vertical cylinders were most commonly associated with return flue and similar type boilers such as those provided on many locomotives designed for the Stockton & Darlington Railway and local collieries, usually with two tenders, one at each end. Earl of Airlie, built to a design by J. & C. Carmichael of Dundee, was therefore significantly different in combining vertical cylinders with the soon to become universal fire tube type boiler, initiated by Robert Stephenson on the ever-famous Rocket of 1829.
The cylinders were 11 x 18in., its working pressure was 50lbs/sq.in., and the driving wheels were 5ft diameter. The weight was about 9-10 tons in working order and the locomotive cost £700 when built. The rear end was carried on a non-swivelling four-wheel bogie with 3ft diameter wheels which made the design additionally significant, being an early example of a bogie of any kind being fitted to any locomotive type intended to work in Britain.
Although far less well known than other British locomotive types which emerged during the pioneering days of the 1830's - and eventually leading to something of a 'dead end', as indeed did those many far better recorded examples from Timothy Hackworth and others - Earl of Airlie nevertheless represented an important evolutionary element in the overall evaluation of contemporary possibilities. It is therefore most fortunate that such a fine model exists at all, for it allows a later generation fully to appreciate the essence of yet another idea which emerged during what was undoubtedly a seminal period of locomotive evolution.
The prototype Earl of Airlie was built in 1833 and went into service in September of that year as the first locomotive to be supplied for the Dundee and Newtyle Railway (opened in 1832) and was joined in the same month by a similar example named Lord Wharncliffe. A third locomotive was added to stock in 1834 but it is not known to the writer how similar this one may have been to the first two. The most distinctive feature of the design is the vertical cylinder arrangement driving the leading single driving wheels via very large bell-crank levers pivoted well above the framing and very well represented on the model. A further point of interest is that Dundee and Newtyle Railway was originally built to 4ft 6in. gauge.
At the time the prototype was built, vertical cylinders were most commonly associated with return flue and similar type boilers such as those provided on many locomotives designed for the Stockton & Darlington Railway and local collieries, usually with two tenders, one at each end. Earl of Airlie, built to a design by J. & C. Carmichael of Dundee, was therefore significantly different in combining vertical cylinders with the soon to become universal fire tube type boiler, initiated by Robert Stephenson on the ever-famous Rocket of 1829.
The cylinders were 11 x 18in., its working pressure was 50lbs/sq.in., and the driving wheels were 5ft diameter. The weight was about 9-10 tons in working order and the locomotive cost £700 when built. The rear end was carried on a non-swivelling four-wheel bogie with 3ft diameter wheels which made the design additionally significant, being an early example of a bogie of any kind being fitted to any locomotive type intended to work in Britain.
Although far less well known than other British locomotive types which emerged during the pioneering days of the 1830's - and eventually leading to something of a 'dead end', as indeed did those many far better recorded examples from Timothy Hackworth and others - Earl of Airlie nevertheless represented an important evolutionary element in the overall evaluation of contemporary possibilities. It is therefore most fortunate that such a fine model exists at all, for it allows a later generation fully to appreciate the essence of yet another idea which emerged during what was undoubtedly a seminal period of locomotive evolution.