W&AREVANGELINE

Windsor and Annapolis Railway Steam Locomotive "Evangeline" (I)

• Wheel Arrangement: 4-4-0
• Built by: Messrs. Fox, Walker & Co.
• Date: 1868
• Builder No.:
• Cylinders: 16" x 22"
• Drivers: 61"
• Wheelbase length, (engine and tender): xx' yy"
• Length of Wheel base 20' 8" inches
• Do. to centre of Bogie 17' 9"
• Do. of Bogie 5' 0"
• Overall pilot to tender coupler length: xx' yy"
• Name Origin: Evangeline was the heroine and lover of Gabriel in Longfellow's epic 1847 poem Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie'.

"Evangeline" and No. 2 "Gabriel" were a pair of locomotives landed at Wolfville in November 1868 or early 1869 built by the Fox, Walker and Company of Bristol, England. They were the first new locomotives ordered by the Windsor and Annapolis Railway as the company moved to bolster a fleet of second hand locomotives used in construction with these powerful locomotives to provide service on the new line. The pair were followed by four more Fox Walker locomotives landed later in 1869 (Gaspereaux, Minnehaha, Hiawatha, and Grand Pre). Three men came with the Fox Walker locomotives from England, Thomas Legge, who became locomotive foreman at the W&AR shops in Kentville and two machinists George Jepson and John Waugh.

Evangeline" and "Gabriel" wWERE described in a engineering book from the period:

"Mixed traffic engine constructed by Messrs. Fox, Walker & Co., Bristol, for the Windsor and Annapolis Railway, Nova Scotia. This engine is in general design in accordance with the prevailing American type of passenger engines having four coupled wheels and a bogie The resemblance ends there for the engine is entirely English in detail which appears to be much appreciated by the officials of lines on which the engine is at work The bogie is strongly constructed with plate framing and inside bearings and besides having the ordinary rotating movement on a pivot it may traverse laterally for a few inches A slight lateral movement has also been provided for in the axleboxes of the driving wheels There are 150 flue tubes 2 inches in diameter and as the barrel of the boiler is 4 feet 2 inches in diameter there is abundant space for the generation of steam and circulation of water The tender holds 2,000 gallons of water and is carried on two four wheel bogies."

The broad gauge "Evangeline" was traded to the Canadian Government's Intercolonial Railway in 1875 when the Windsor & Annapolis changed to standard gauge. The W&AR received another locomotive in return, No. 14, which they also named Evangeline and which became a DAR locomotive in 1894. The use of these names twice has caused some confusion with photos of the first Evangeline Gabriel sometimes being labelled as their successor locomotives, built by CLC in Kingston.

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