Bristol and Exeter Railway Fairfield steam carriage

Fairfield
Type and origin Power type Steam Designer William Bridges Adams Builder Adams and Company
Specifications Configuration: ​  • Whyte 0-2-4 Gauge 7 ft 1⁄4 in (2,140 mm) Driver dia. 4 ft 6 in (1,372 mm) Trailing dia. 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) Wheelbase 28 ft 0 in (8.53 m) Cylinder size 8 in × 12 in (203 mm × 305 mm) dia × stroke
Career Operators Bristol and Exeter Railway Class Steam carriage

The Bristol and Exeter Railway Fairfield was an experimental broad gauge self-propelled steam carriage. In later use the carriage portion was removed and it was used as a small shunting locomotive.

The steam carriage was built to the design of William Bridges Adams at Fairfield Works in Bow, London. It was tested on the West London Railway late in 1848, although it was early in 1850 before modifications had been made that allowed Adams to demonstrate that it was working to the agreed standards. The design was not perpetuated by the Bristol and Exeter Railway, instead they purchased small 2-2-2T locomotives for working their branch lines.

It worked on the Clevedon and Tiverton branches, although it might have spent some time on the Weston branch too.

The power unit had a single pair of driving wheels driven through a jackshaft by small 8-by-12-inch (203 mm × 305 mm) cylinders. Originally equipped with a vertical boiler 6 feet (1,800 mm) in height, 3 feet (910 mm) in diameter, this was replaced by a horizontal boiler length 7 feet 7 inches (2,310 mm), diameter 2 feet 6 inches (760 mm). The boiler was not covered by a cab or other bodywork; the two pairs of carrying wheels were beneath the carriage portion. It had seats for 16 first class and 32 second class passengers. It was once timed as running at 52 miles per hour (84 km/h).^[1]

It was numbered 29 in the Bristol and Exeter Railway locomotive list but generally referred to as "the Fairfield locomotive".

Adams built another couple of steam railmotors at around the same time, but the concept did not catch on. It was revived around the turn of the century and the Great Western Railway built up a fleet of around 100 bogie rail motors. These were developed into an autotrain system whereby the driver of a locomotive could control the train from a cab in the carriage, the forerunner of today's the familiar multiple unit trains.

The carriage portion was removed in 1851 and the power unit rebuilt, presumably with a new pair of carrying wheels making it an 0-2-2. Its use for the next few years is unclear, although it might have been moved to Taunton to pump water.

It was sold to Messrs Hutchinson and Ritson in 1856, the engineering contractors who were working on the Somerset Central Railway. Before delivery, the Bristol and Exeter Railway had to rebuild it as an 0-4-0. The price agreed was £600, paid in prepared timber.

• Adams axle

• "The Fair-Field Steam Carriage". Illustrated London News. 1849.
• The Locomotives of the Great Western Railway, Part 2: Broad Gauge. The Railway Correspondence and Travel Society. 1952. ISBN 0-901115-32-0.
• Dempsey, G Drysdale (1857). "Extracts from a Rudimentary Treatise on the Locomotive Engine". Broadsheet (Reprinted from Book) (55). Broad Gauge Society: 24–26.
• Hutson, Mick (2001). "Fairfield, the first steam railmotor". Broadsheet (45). Broad Gauge Society: 8–12.
• Waters, Laurence (1999). The Great Western Broad Gauge. Hersham: Ian Allan Publishing. ISBN 0-7110-2634-3.

• The GWR Steam Railmotor Project