Midland Railway Paget locomotive

Paget
The only known photograph of the Paget locomotive is this official portrait.
Power type	Steam
Designer	Cecil Walter Paget
Builder	Midland Railway Derby Works
Build date	1908
Configuration	2-6-2
UIC classification	1'C1' n8
Leading wheel diameter	3 ft 3 1⁄2 in (1,003 mm)
Driver diameter	5 ft 4 in (1,626 mm)
Trailing wheel diameter	3 ft 3 1⁄2 in (1,003 mm)
Wheelbase	Coupled: 17 ft 4 in (5.28 m), Locomotive: 31 ft 4 in (9.55 m)
Weight on drivers	59 tons 6 cwt (132,800 lb or 60.2 t)
Locomotive weight	74 tons 10 cwt (166,900 lb or 75.7 t)
Boiler pressure	180 lbf/in² (1.24 MPa)
Cylinders	8 single-acting
Cylinder size	18 × 12 in (457 × 305 mm)
Tractive effort	18,590 lbf (82.69 kN)
Career	Midland Railway
Number	2299
Locale	United Kingdom
Scrapped	1919

The Midland Railway's Paget locomotive, No. 2299, was an experimental steam locomotive constructed at its Derby Works in 1908 to the design of the General Superintendent Cecil Paget (though Richard Deeley was Locomotive Superintendent at the time).

It was designed on the principle of the Willans high speed central valve engines, some which had been installed at the works. It had a total of eight uniflow cylinders arranged in two groups of four placed between the 1st and 2nd and 2nd and 3rd driving axles, with rotary steam distribution valves placed over each. Two were connected to the forward pair of the six driving wheels. Four were connected, two each side to the centre pair , with the final two behind the last pair. These drove a jackshaft which operated and reversed the valves, and cut off was controlled by rotary sleeves.^[1]

The boiler was large and had an unusual integral firebox, lined with firebricks. Two-wheel pony trucks were fitted front and rear. It was the first 2-6-2 tender locomotive in Great Britain and would be the only one until the LNER Class V2 of 1936.

Paget had initially financed it himself, but unfortunately ran out of money, and the railway made up for the difference. There has been a history on the railways of a distrust of new ideas and Paget and Deeley were not on the best of terms. Lowe suggests that there was great hostility to it.

However, it had problems with seizing of the phosphor bronze sleeves in the cast iron steam chest, with leakage in the glands and piston rings.

In 1912, one of the rotary valves seized while on a test run, the engine blocking the main line for seven hours. As a result it was put in store at Derby and was broken up in 1918, while Paget was in France commanding the Royal Engineers Railway Operating Division.^[2]

As the Midland shrouded the locomotive in secrecy, there is only one known photograph, which was not released until after The Grouping of 1923.

References

1. ^ Lowe J. W., (1989) British Steam Locomotive Builders, Guild Publishing
2. ^ The Paget Locomotive (Accessed 17 March 2008)

• Ellis, C. Hamilton (1966). Midland Railway. Ashford, Middlesex: Malaga Books. pp. 131, 133. 

Further reading

• Clayton, James, (1945) 'The Paget locomotive' in The railway gazette, 2nd November 1945 (also reprinted in booklet form)
• Mills, Bob, (2000) 'The Paget locomotive' in BackTrack, vol. 14, no. 1 (January 2000), pp. 21–23