Midland Railway Locomotives: Volume #02 'The Kirtley Classes' (IR858)

Product No.: IR858
Title: Midland Railway Locomotives: Volume #02 'The Kirtley Classes'
Author(s): Summerson, Stephen
Illustrator(s): N/A
Publisher: Irwell Press
ISBN: 1903266858
Condition: New
Binding: Laminated Pictorial Boards
Dust Jacket: None
Edition: 1st Edition
Publication Year: 2007

Features: 154 Pages with Black/White Photos.

The thirty years of the Kirtley era, 1844-73, are a long time ago now. It was a period of rapid change and one of considerable complexity for the historian. Many of the earlier engines did not have long lives, but those built in the last ten years, with a few exceptions, were very long-lived. Their sturdy construction and ready adaptability to accept later and larger boilers resulted in examples of both passenger and goods engines still in use after the Second World War.

In this way the more senior members of our enthusiast fraternity have a ready recollection of these ancient engines and form a link with those early days long gone. Indeed, nobody was Anybody in the late 1940s if they had not been to Bournville to see the last of the double frame 0-6-0s gathered there. No.22834 was the ultimate icon.

With Johnson pattern boiler, the cab displaying a brass class 1 power class numeral and that amazing horseshoe tank layout of its tender, it was, even in those days, held in some awe as a relic of the distant past. The fact that the Ian Allan ABC said it was class 2 (which was true) and that its tender plate bore the date 1867 (the book said introduced 1868 ) only increased the fascination. Such little items formed the stimulus for research to sort it out , ultimately to result in this volume.