Enthusiasts' Info - Locomotives

GSWR 0-6-0T Locomotive No. 90 is currently on loan to the DCDR from Irish Rail, and is currently undergoing minor repair at the RPSI Workshops in Whitehead.

No. 90 was built not as a loco but as a steam railmotor with an 0-6-4WT wheel arrangement that included a carriage portion supported by the 4-wheel bogie. The carriage section comprised an eight seat first class compartment immediately behind the driver's cab (warm and smutty) and a guards van that could additionally seat six third class passengers.

Though of Inchicore design, No. 90 was not built there but in the great Locomotive works of the LNWR at Crewe in 1875 during the reign of John Ramsbottom. Indeed she may even have been built there illegally since in that same year, the independent locomotive builders successfully obtained a court injunction against the LNWR to prevent it building locomotives for the L&YR and thereby muscling in on the independent builders' business. Did they cite it as a case of surplus capacity dumping? No doubt No. 90 was hardly noticed by the legal eagles. Even in those far off days she must have been one of the most diminutive locos built at Crewe. She was, however, neither the first nor last 5ft 3in gauge loco built there for in 1873, Crewe had supplied the first three of six 0-6-0STs to the DNGR and would follow with two more in 1876.

The next intriguing question is who really designed No. 90. In March 1875 J. A. F (later Sir John) Aspinall arrived at Inchicore from Crewe to take up the post of works manager reporting to the Locomotive Superintendent Alexander McDonnell. In a 1966 article for the IRRS booklet "Steaming through a century - The 101 Class Locomotives of the GSWR" Mr. Clements makes the point that McDonnell was by that stage mainly interested in the administration and economic efficiency of the works and rarely visited the drawing office leaving Aspinall to supervise design matters. Was Aspinall (who later succeeded McDonnell) then No. 90s designer and/or instrumental in having her built at Crewe? Was it because she was not a standard Inchicore design that the work was sub-contracted or was it because she was not being built for the GSWR at all?

In fact No. 90 was built for the independent Castleisland Railway in Co. Kerry that connected the town of Castleisland to a junction at Gortalea on the Tralee & Killarney Railway. To keep costs down the 4½ mile branch had been laid with 40lb rails which limited speed to 25mph and axle load to 6½ tons. The GSWR was not prepared to work such a line themselves but facilitated the design and order of the lightweight steam carriage for the Castleisland Railway. However in 1879 the GSWR purchased the line with its steam carriage and it was at this point that she received her number '90' in the GSWR stock. Other similarly designed steam carriages were built by the GSWR for lightly loaded branches such as that to Mitchelstown and for use as a travelling pay carriage.

In an Inchicore rebuild in 1915 when E. A. Watson was Locomotive Superintendent, No. 90 was separated from its carriage . At the turn of the century she would have lost her GSWR green livery and from her re-build in 1915 she would have been turned out in battleship grey. In CIE days she wore black with large yellow numerals on each tank replacing her cast metal number plate. In preservation she again wears green, although an incorrect shade. This will be rectified by ourselves.

As branch line track relaying increasingly allowed for the use of heavier locomotives, the GSWR's need for such special light weight engines declined. However with the merger of the CBSCR and its Timoleague & Courtmacsherry Extension Light Railway in 1924, No. 90 and her sister No. 100 found a new lease of life working both passenger and goods trains on the branch and often doubleheading the special summer seaside excursion trains to Courtmacsherry. Though largely displaced on the branch by the ex MGWR 'E' Class 0-6-0Ts and later the 'C' Class Bo-Bo Diesel Electrics, No. 90 contrived to survive and was taken into preservation.

It is interesting to compare No. 90 with the Stroudley Class A1 'Terrier' 0-6-0Ts of the LBSCR which also date from the 1870s and were built for use on lightly laid South London suburban lines.

No. 90 Cylinders 10" x 18"; wheels 3' 6"
Terrier Cylinders 12" x 20"; wheels 4' 0"

Both were small, long lived, successful and survivors.

When No. 90 arrives in Downpatrick she will be in familiar company as the Deutz 'G' Class Diesel Locos were specially introduced to re-open some closed CIE branches including that to Castleisland. Indeed, the former Castleisland Railway which, having lost all regular services in 1947, was unexpectedly re-opened in 1957 to regular goods traffic using a 'G' Class loco and survived until 1977. When the humans have all gone home at night will 90 and the 'Gs' be busy exchanging Kerryman jokes in engine shed at Downpatrick?

Written by John Towers