11.—The “Cornwall”details

8 ft 6 in single-driver engine, “Cornwall,” No. 3020, London and North Western Railway, 1847

The six-wheeled locomotive, “Cornwall,” was built at Crewe Works in 1847, to the designs of Mr. Francis Trevithick, son of the famous Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick, inventor of the steam locomotive.

To obtain a low centre of gravity, the boiler was placed below the driving axle: the driving wheels were 8ft. 6in. diameter, the largest locomotive driving wheels in the world. The driving axle passed through a channel recessed in the top of the boilder, and the trailing axle through a tube in the firebox. As shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851, the “Cornwall” had eight wheels, two pairs of leading wheels being required on account of the considerable overhang.

As built, the “Cornwall” was not a success, and was subsequently reconstructed by Mr. J. Ramsbottom, at Crewe, in 1858, as a six-wheeled engine with an ordinary boiler above the driving axle, and 17¼in. by 24in. cylinders, and very little of the original engine can have remained. In this reconstructed form the engine is iillustrated, exceot that the cab is a later addition. It worked fast trains between Manchester and Liverpool until 1902, whe it was withdrawn from regular service. it is still preserved at Crewe, and until recently was in service hauling the Mechanical Engineers’ Saloon Coach.

Very little has been recorded of its doings, but the late Mr. Rous Marten mentions that in 1884 this engine ran from Crewe to Chester ticket platform 20¾ miles in 25 minutes, and from Stafford to Crewe, 24½ miles in 29 minutes start to stop. In places he gave the speed at 70 miles per hour, and “found it a very steady running engine, on the footplate.” The loads are not recorded.

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