This very unusual looking electric locomotive was built by AEG (Allgemeine Elektricitats-Gesellschaft, which translates as 'General Electric Company') of Germany for the Harton Electric Railway system in the north-east of England, in 1913. The Harton Electric Railway was an industrial railway that linked the collieries at Harton and Westoe with the staithes at South Shields, very innovative and forward-thinking when the vast majority of industrial railways and even main railways were, and continued to do so until the 1960's, relied on steam locomotives.
The Harton Electric Railway was opened in 1908, originally using Siemens built electric locomotives (again built by a German company), later supplemented by AEG built locomotives such as this one, E9. The system was in use for over 80 years, and E9 went through the ownership from the Harton Coal Company to the National Coal Board and later British Coal, before moving to preservation at the Tanfield Railway in 1988, where it was photographed on a wet day in July 2012
Ex NCB, Harton. Possibly Siemens Schukert 862/1913, Harton Coal No.E10 ?
ReplyDeleteWith all respect, "E10" had been a small 17-tonne-Siemens Bo 4-wheeler, but works-# seems to have been 562 of 1913.
ReplyDeleteAbout the topical, particularly odd-looking "armour plate, low-floor, steeple-cab, bogie" Bo'Bo' - locomotive :
In "Modern Tramway" of January, 1980 p.2-7 , and February, 1980 p.38-44, Author John H. Price in his two-part account on "The Harton Electric Railway" quoted "The Times Engineering Supplement" dd 18.06.1913 with the following specification of AEG- # 1565 / 1913 as Loco # 9 (at some time plated as "E 9"), apparently modiified @ manufacturing stage for standard gauge from a design for narrow-gauge lignite pit railways in central Europe; a usual sight until late in 1980ies in both Germanies; latest builts by East German LEW at the site of former AEG loco works as "EL-3", and A.Jung with Siemens in 1972 as "EL-4" for "LIPTOL" in Northern Greece (LIgnite open-cast Mines in PTOLemais provices): 75 tonnes, 900 mm gauge, mostly for 600 or 1200 V dc o/h supplies; tempi passati !
By contrast, data of "E 9":
Length 35'0" // 10668 mm (if over buffers or carbody remains unresolved; rounding and simplifications were normal in daily press, then as now)
Width 8'0" // 2438,4 mm (unclear if measured over side plates, rivet heads, or handrails, likely 2435 or 2440 mm)
Bogie wheelbase 5'4" // 1625 mm
Bogie centre separation 18' // 5486,4 mm (likely 5485 mm)
Mass 40 t (or tonnes (metr.)?) incl. ballast weights of 8 t
4 Traction motors @ 61,5 hp // 46 kW dd each (conversion factor (imp. b-)hp in kW assumed to be 0,746)
Tractive effort 12200 lbs @ 8 mph // 54,268 kN @ 12,9 km/h (calculates into 4x48,6 kW, thus, motors could work at a bit of an overload without sustaining winding or commutator damage)
Air brake and sanding gear seemed to have been noteworthy by then, in view of prevailing vacuum braked stock.
In 1925 Loco # "(E) 9" briefly carried a pantograph made by Brecknell-Munro with a revolving copper tube for o/h current collection, in place of a standard "pan" (which is self-cleaning by friction with the catenary) - no further reports on this experiment are available (or did you find anything?).
For preservation, maybe an attempt to check with AEG documentation provides more information, but far too many documents seem to have got lost by unfortunate raging times since 1913 ... :-(
Kind regards,
C.Thomas Wagner (Goslar, Germany)