The

Midland Great Western Railway The Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR) was the third largest Irish gauge () railway company in Ireland. It was incorporated in 1845 and absorbed into the Great Southern Railways in 1924. At its peak the had a network of , making it Ireland's ...

(MGWR) C Class was a class of

4-4-0 4-4-0, in the Whyte notation, denotes a steam locomotive with a wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles (usually in a leading bogie), four powered and coupled driving wheels on two axles, and no trailing wheels. First built in the ...

locomotives designed and built at Broadstone by Edward Cusack between 1909 and 1915 using parts obtained from

Kitson and Company Kitson and Company was a locomotive manufacturer based in Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Early history The company was started in 1835 by James Kitson (businessman), James Kitson at the Airedale Foundry, off Pearson Street, Hunslet, ...

. They replaced the earlier 7-12 class. The class survived through the

Great Southern Railways The Great Southern Railways Company (often Great Southern Railways, or GSR) was an Ireland, Irish company that from 1925 until 1945 owned and operated all railways that lay wholly within the Irish Free State (the present-day Republic of Irelan ...

(GSR) era from 1925-1944 and were withdrawn in the 1950s under Córas Iompair Éireann.

Locomotives

The class consisted of nine locomotives as follows:

History

From their introduction in 1909 the class was originally designed to be used principally on trains on the Sligo and Mayo branches. Their large driving wheels caused low acceleration and difficulties on gradients so they were deployed to

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

Galway Galway ( ; , ) is a City status in Ireland, city in (and the county town of) County Galway. It lies on the River Corrib between Lough Corrib and Galway Bay. It is the most populous settlement in the province of Connacht, the List of settleme ...

slow passenger work. Poor riding also led to a high incidence of breaking of bogie springs. In 1912 during the coal strike of that year No. 10 was converted to an oil burning locomotive using Holden oil burning apparatus. The class were rebuilt with superheated boilers and new cabs over their long lives beginning in the 1920s. Those also having piston-valves formed GSR Class 540 whilst those retaining slide values going to GSR Class 536. They were withdrawn in the 1950s, Class 536 with their poorer performance first.

Liveries

When introduced the locomotives carried an apple green livery with black edged with white lining. The tender was lettered MGWR with the company seal between the letters G and W. They carried brass nameplates on the lead driving when splasher with the builders plate and number on the cabside. From 1915 after W.H. Morton was appointed

Chief Mechanical Engineer Chief mechanical engineer and locomotive superintendent are titles applied by British, Australian, and New Zealand railway companies to the person ultimately responsible to the board of the company for the building and maintaining of the locomotive ...

of the MGWR the engines were repainted black until the merger of the MGWR into the

in 1925. From then until withdrawal, all were painted plain grey, initially with cast cabside numberplates (also plain grey), but from about 1949 these were gradually removed with pale yellow painted numerals substituted.

References and sources

References

Sources

* * * {{Ireland Steam Locomotives 4-4-0 locomotives 2′B locomotives 5 ft 3 in gauge locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1909 C Steam locomotives of Ireland