Rahul Sharma (Editor)

Highland Railway Clan Class

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Power type
  
Steam

Serial number
  
3329–3332, 3443–3446

Total produced
  
8

Designer
  
Christopher Cumming

Build date
  
1919 (4), 1921 (4)

Builder
  
Hawthorn Leslie and Company

The Highland Railway's Clan Class was a class of passenger 4-6-0 steam locomotives designed by Christopher Cumming. The design is derived from that of the slightly earlier Clan Goods although the similarity is more visual than real. The first four were built in 1919, and the remaining four in 1921.

Contents

Dimensions

They had 21-by-26-inch (533 by 660 mm) cylinders outside with outside Walschaerts valve gear, 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) driving wheels and a boiler pressured to 175 psi (1.21 MPa). Weight was 62 long tons 5 cwt (139,400 lb or 63.2 t) for the locomotive and 42 long tons (43 t; 47 short tons) for the tender. Piston valve diameter is given as 10 inches (254 mm) (quite large for the period), but they had the conventional short lap, short travel valves. Bearing in mind that they probably spent a large part of their time slogging uphill or coasting down this was probably not too important. Total evaporative heating surface is given as 1,467 sq ft (136.3 m2), plus 256 sq ft (23.8 m2) for the Robinson type superheater, and grate area as 25.5 sq ft (2.37 m2).

Oil firing

Early in 1921 Clan Stewart was used for experiments with oil firing. This seems to have been successful, but was not applied to any other locomotives. Just when Clan Stewart reverted to coal operation does not seem to be recorded.

Transfer to LMS

The locomotives passed to the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) in 1923. The LMS classified them '4P'.

Transfer to BR

Two survived into British Railways (BR) hands in 1948, but only Clan Mackinnon received its BR number. Some of the Clan names were later reapplied to the BR Standard Class 6.

References

Highland Railway Clan Class Wikipedia