Have you ever heard of those unusual engines?

[quirky]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW1-NvHGx74

[jayar]

Interesting ideas.....

[wyvern]

Know of many of those - most are in Wikipedia.

Brunton's Mechanical Traveller was intended for very steep inclines such as from Bullbridge to a quarry in Crich the hope being to eliminate the complexity of cable haulage as the working face moved. It was actually quite successful until a driver overloaded its boiler up in Newcastle and it exploded. It was never carried on but its descendants can e seen today in the form of walking draglines.

The Fell diesel was a regular sight on the Midland main line and was also pretty successful. It was intended to reduce weight compared to diesel-electrics (hauling through-braked stock) and be more efficient than diesel-hydraulic. Its downfall was that it was too complex to economically maintain.

The LNER loco at the beginning was I believe their Beyer-Garratt. The LMS built some (with Derby axle boxes) and there are many still working all over the world (in fact I think one of our members used to drive them for Rhodesian Railways)

[Bevan Price]

Apart from the Beyer Garratt (LNER Class U1), they were all a bunch of experiments and/or failures. The Fell diesel proved only that 2000 hp was too much for a mechanical transmission on a locomotive. (using technology existing at that time.). It probably spent more time in works than in useful service.

The U1 was used as a banker on the Worsborough Incline, until the route was electrified as part of the Woodhead scheme. I seem to recall it was then tried briefly as a Lickey banker, but they then decided to use a 9F 2-10-0 instead.

[Tony]

During the lifetime of the Fell Diesel I used to get the Trains Illustrated every month. Every time the Fell diesel left Derby works there were photographs and a short article. The loco spent long spells "in works" and used to occasionally venture out to Manchester and back. It was a red letter day for the spotters whenever it made it as far as Manchester Central, think I saw it twice. The early diesel experimental locos seemed to follow the same pattern; 18000, 18100, Lion, Falcon etc.