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W&ARLightning
Windsor and Annapolis Railway Steam Locomotive "Lightning"
- Wheel Arrangement: 4-4-0
- Built by: Messrs. Fox, Walker & Co.
- Date: mm/yyyy
- Builder No.:
- Cylinders: xx" x yy"
- Drivers: xx"
- Wheelbase length, (engine and tender): xx' yy"
- Length of Wheel base xx' yy" inches
- Do. to centre of Bogie xx' yy"
- Do. of Bogie xx' yy"
- Overall pilot to tender coupler length: xx' yy"
- Name Origin:
“Lightning”, purchased used from the Great Western Railway, was driven down by Legge, the locoeotivie
Foreean, lost its lefthand trailing driviing wheel near Brownviille. The part flew of and
buried itself in a snowy field, causing an intensive search that took two days.[1] or early 1869[2] 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 more 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.[3]
Gabriel was 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."[4]
This broad gauge "Gabriel" 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, No. 13, which they also named Gabriel.[5] The use of the name twice has caused some confusion with photos of the first Gabriel sometimes being labelled as the second Gabriel, built by CLC in Kingston.
Gallery
The first Windsor & Annapolis "Gabriel" built by Messrs. Fox, Walker & Co.
The Windsor & Annapolis Railway's "Gabriel" in Nova Scotia, circa 1869.
References and Footnotes
- ↑ Marguerite Woodworth, History of the Dominion Atlantic Railway, page 62
- ↑ W.W. Clarke, Clarke's History of the Earliest Railways in Nova Scotia, (circa 1925), page 5
- ↑ W.W. Clarke, page 5
- ↑ Zerah Colburn, Daniel Kinnear Clark, Locomotive Engineering, and the Mechanism of Railways: A Treatise on the Principles and Contruction, Volume 1, London and Glasgow: William Collins, Sons, and Company (1871) Page 274
- ↑ J.B. King, "WAR Motive Powers Presents Thorny Problems", Chronicle Herald, May 24, 1958
