Railmotor

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0-4-0 steam railmotor Enfield built by William Adams for the Eastern Counties Railway in 1849. Note the raised buffers for use with other rolling stock.

This article is about steam railcars used by British railway companies. For more general information see Railcar.

Railmotor is a term which was used by several British railway companies for a steam railcar.

1 Overview
2 Designs
3 Fleets
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Overview

William Bridges Adams started building railmotors as early as 1848, but only in small numbers. One example was the Bristol and Exeter Railway Fairfield steam carriage.

Around 1900, because of competition from road vehicles and electric trams, there was renewed interest in railmotors and several railway companies, including the London and North Western Railway, Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, and Great Western Railway began to introduce them.

[edit] Designs

There were two basic designs:

A small 0-4-0 steam locomotive with one end of a coach hung on it like a semi-trailer.

A coach with a steam engine built into one end of it. This type would sometimes have a vertical boiler.

These machines were not a great success because they lacked flexibility. Most could haul a single trailer, but no more, so they could not cope with peak demands. For this reason, they were largely superseded by push-pull trains and the GWR converted some of their railmotors into autocoaches for this purpose.

In the late 1920s there was another revival of railmotors with the introduction of new designs from Clayton and Sentinel with high-speed engines. The London and North Eastern Railway bought over 80 of them but, again, they were short-lived. Some lasted no more than 10 years and all had been withdrawn by 1947.

In the 1950s the diesel railcar made great progress and the railmotor was consigned to history. The diesel's ability to use multiple unit control was a huge advantage.

[edit] Fleets

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Operator	Period	Quantity
Barry Railway	1905 - 1914	2	Converted to bogie composite coaches (Diagram 14)
Bristol and Exeter Railway	1850 - 1851	1	See Bristol and Exeter Railway Fairfield steam carriage
Cardiff Railway
Eastern Counties Railway	1847 -
Furness Railway	1905 - 1918	2
Great Central Railway	1904 -	3
Great Northern Railway	1905 - 1927	6
Great Southern and Western Railway (Ireland)	1904 - 1915
Great Western Railway	1903 - 1935	99	See GWR steam rail motors
Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway	1905 - 1948	18
London and South Western Railway	1901 - 1903	15
London Brighton and South Coast Railway	1905 -	2
Nidd Valley Light Railway	1921 - 1929	1	Ex-Great Western Railway
Northern Counties Committee	1905 - 1913	2
Port Talbot Railway	1906 - 1915	1	Sold to Port of London Authority, withdrawn 1926.
Rhymney Railway
South Eastern and Chatham Railway	1904 -	6
Taff Vale Railway		16

[edit] References

Dempsey, G Drysdale (1857). "Extracts from a Rudimentary Treatise on the Locomotive Engine". Broadsheet (reprinted from book) (55): 24–26. Broad Gauge Society.
Kitchenside, G.M. (1964). Railway Carriages, 1839-1939. London: Ian Allan.
Parkhouse, Niel; Pope, Ian. "The Rise and Fall of the Steam Rail Motor". Archive (3): 39–46. Lightmoor Press. ISSN 1352-7991.
Mountford, Eric R (1987). The Barry Railway, Diagrams and photographs of Locomotives, Coaches and Wagons. Oxford: Oakwood Press.