Austro-Daimler

From Festipedia, hosted by the FR Heritage Group

This 4wPM locomotive of about 20hp was obtained by Colonel Stephens for use on the Croesor Tramway in July 1925, having been used by contractors P&W Anderson Ltd on the Torrington and Halwill Railway construction contract in Devon. No money was exchanged.

It seems to have been used for a time; spares were delivered in August 1926 and letters in the Archives suggest some use shunting around Portmadoc including trips between Snowdon Flour Mill and docked vessels. It was even tried out with a single passenger coach (a Hudson Toastrack) on 25 January 1928, but this experiment was a failure, taking 45 minutes to complete the trip. Suggestions were made that it could reside in a shed somewhere on the Beddgelert Siding side of the Cambrian Crossing to avoid the use of the latter when it came into dispute, to allow Croesor traffic to be carried away without incurring the cost of crossing the standard gauge. With Croesor traffic declining it was then used on shunting, and although transferred to the FR in December 1928 it was out of use by 1929. From this time it seems to have languished in a corner of the paint shop. At least two offers were made to purchase it for £10 were made in May 1933 but ultimately it was scrapped in 1934.

A photograph indicating to be this type of locomotive on the Colonel Stephens Railway Museum web site shows a diminutive "skip frame" machine; it is not known whether the example used in Wales was of a similar type, and it appears to be rather small to have been used successfully to haul slate wagons on the Croesor Tramway. Austro-Daimler appear to have built three variants: the small 6hp type as per the above link, the medium variant of 10-12hp (the SL12) and the largest of around 30hp. Information on the types is limited, but the medium variant is the most likely as it is known to have built from the Great War onwards, whereas the larger model appeared later. The quoted power of 20hp at the beginning of this article is not verified by any material found so far in the Archives and Austro-Daimler didn't build any standard models with anything matching this, throwing some question on the matter.

A photo of the type suggested above can be found here - http://vaunut.org/kuvasivu.php/52335

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  • Bradley, Vic (1993) [1992]. Industrial Locomotives of North Wales. London: Industrial Railway Society. ISBN 0-9010-9672-5. OCLC 27769657.