It was founded in 1881 by James Kerr as "James Kerr & Company", and became "Kerr, Stuart & Company" from 1883 when John Stuart was taken on as a partner. The business started in Glasgow, Scotland, but during this time they were only acting as agents ordering locomotives from established manufacturers, among them Falcon, John Fowler & Co. and Hartley, Arnoux and Fanning. They bought the last-named company in 1892 and moved into the California Works in Stoke to begin building all their own locomotives. Hartley, Arnoux and Fanning had also been building railway and tramway plant. This side of their business was sold to Dick, Kerr and Co. in Preston.
Kerr, Stuart were known for producing a number of standard designs with many engines being built for stock and sold 'off the shelf' to customers. The names of these locomotive types were often derived from the purchaser of the first of that type or from the name it was given.
The Kerr, Stuart designs are typified by having a single trailing truck (allowing a large firebox to be placed behind the driving wheels) and/or having a saddle tank. Several designs of side tank locomotive were produced that shared a chassis and boiler with a saddle tank design and it is not unknown for a standard chassis from one design to be used with a different design's standard boiler to produce a locomotive to suit a customer's special requirements.
No 3063 (1918) initially supplied to the National Shipyard in Beachley was purchased by W & R Parker in 1980. It was restored to working order at The Flour Mill in Bream, Gloucestershire in 2012 and is informally known as 'Willy the Well Tank". was at the Barry Tourist Railway in summer 2021. Now on loan to the Swindon and Cricklade Railway for the 2024 season. This is essentially a Borrows design from the 1860s.
Pixie one of 27 of the Wren class ordered for a sewer contract in Essex, sold to Devon County Council in 1929. Purchased by the Industrial Locomotive Society in 1957, it entered service at Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway in 1969.
Works number 3114 was part of the same batch of Wrens on the sewer contract. Its history beyond this is uncertain but it is believed that it worked on the dismantling of the Ashover Light Railway. After that it worked on the Bala Lake Railway as "Dryw Bach", and is now owned by the Vale of Rheidol Railway.
Peter Pan worked with Pixie in Devon. It was purchased in 1972 by Graham Hall who found the locomotive in a back garden in Bromsgrove and sometimes operates at the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway.
Lorna Doone is now preserved by the Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery and is currently at the Amerton Railway, operational.
Also at the Amerton Railway is new build Wren "Jennie", built by the Hunslet Engine Company in 2008.
Two of three locomotives being built for Allan Alderson and Company of Cairo for use during the Nile Barrage construction in Egypt were diverted to the British War Office in November 1899, for use by the Royal Engineers in a siege park in the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek during the Second Boer War. Of the 58 of this class built only 2 are known to survive. No 1158 of 1917 "Diana" privately owned in the UK, and returned to working order in 2015, after 65 years out of use. The second is 652 "Hope", a modified Sirdar, which is classed as a National Monument in Namibia.
named after Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig; the Haig class was developed from the Joffre as a result of parts being left unused at the end of the Great War. Two examples survive in New Zealand (one at Ocean Beach Railway in Dunedin, the other at MOTAT in Auckland) and one – Sergeant Murphy – on the Teifi Valley Railway
locobrake with two coaches on a tourist trip in 1987. The locomotive was built by Stephenson in 1931 to an almost identical design to the Kerr Stuarts
In addition to their standard designs, Kerr Stuart accepted orders to build to customers' own designs. From 1900, they built 0-4-0T locobrake for the São Paulo Railway5 ft 3 in (1,600 mm) gauge cable incline between Paranapiacaba and Piaçagüera. Six of them are preserved.[citation needed]
Narrow-gauge 0-4-0T 652 built in 1899 worked in the docks at Walvis Bay, Namibia until the 1950s and is now preserved in a purpose-built glass-windowed display hut in the forecourt of Walvis Bay station.[citation needed]
A large 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge 0-6-6-0Meyer followed in 1904. Five American style bar-framed 2-8-0 tender locomotives were built for the 3 ft (914 mm) gauge Interocianic and Mexican Eastern Railways. In May 1910 they built a 2 ft (610 mm) gauge "modified Fairlie" for service in Madras - two 0-4-2T locomotives permanently coupled back to back. They received a repeat order for this combination.[citation needed]
In 1910 a class of four 4-2-2 express passenger locomotives designed by E. J. Dunstan were produced for the Shanghai Nanking Railway. In service these locomotives proved to be faster, smoother running, and more economicalthan the similar 4-4-0 engines on the same line.[citation needed]
Kerr Stuart works plate from GWR 57XX Class 0-6-0PT 7714 No.4449 of 1930
The company received several orders from the 2 ft (610 mm) gauge Gwalior Light Railway in India. This included four large 2-8-2 tender locomotives in 1928.[citation needed]
After the First World War, Kerr, Stuart received a number of large orders from the British mainline railway companies who were seeking to replace obsolete equipment with their own standard designs. In 1920 the Metropolitan Railway ordered eight superheated 4-4-4T passenger locomotives for the Aylesbury service. Between 1925 and 1927 the London Midland and Scottish Railway ordered fifty standard class 4F 0-6-0 goods locomotives and between 1929 and 1930 the Great Western Railway ordered 25 GWR 5700 Class0-6-0PTs.[citation needed]
Diesel locomotives
In the late 1920s a number of diesel locomotives were built. These were available with two or three axles for various track gauges. The engines were by McLaren-Benz in 2-cylinder (30 hp), 4-cylinder (60 hp) or 6-cylinder (90 hp) form. Transmission was mechanical and final drive was by roller chains.[11]
They were very successful even though technology moved on quickly. Further development was stopped when Kerr, Stuart's went into receivership, but the Hunslet range of diesel locomotives was based on these. At least 3 Kerr, Stuart diesel locomotives have survived into preservation but none is in original condition having been given different engines.
On 17 April 1930 a petition calling for the company to be wound up compulsorily was presented in the High Court (Chancery Division) by the Midland Bank.[12] At a hearing held on 8 May 1930 this petition was withdrawn on settlement of an £8,000 guarantee.[13] However, the sale of the works to George Cohen, Sons & Co Ltd was announced in August 1930; a skeleton staff was employed to complete contracts in progress.[14] Another winding-up petition was presented on 10 September 1930 and an order was made on 14 October.[15] At the creditors' meeting held on 14 November Herbert Langham Reed, the company's chairman and managing director,[16] attributed the failure of the company to the locking up of capital in the Peninsular Locomotive Company, registered in India 1921 to build locomotives (Kerr, Stuart held 80% of the capital and loaned £78,000), the [April] winding-up petition, which had resulted in a loss of confidence in the company, and 'to liabilities incurred by the company in supporting other companies'.[17]
Company funds had, apparently, been used to finance a company called Evos Sliding Doorways. This company's failure had triggered the Midland Bank petition.[18] In LTC Rolt's autobiography "The Landscape Trilogy" it is also alleged that the company secretary was discovered to have committed suicide in Kerr, Stuart's London offices, and a large quantity of papers was found to have been burnt in the fireplace.[19] The firm's goodwill (designs, spare parts, etc.) was bought by the Hunslet Engine Company.
Some locomotives were built by W. G. Bagnall to Kerr, Stuart designs, a result of the chief Kerr, Stuart draughtsman, F. H. B. Harris, and a number of other Kerr, Stuart staff being employed by Bagnall's. These locomotives include examples of the Haig and Matary classes.
The last steam locomotive built in Britain for industrial use, was a Hunslet built Brazil class engine in 1971. This locomotive is now running on the private Statfold Barn Railway.
The Corris Railway commissioned a new locomotive based on the "Tattoo" design of its original No.4 (KS 4047 of 1921) and this was privately built over a ten-year period and went into service in 2005 as No.7.
ex-Gloddfa Ganol. Heavily rebuilt, but retaining many original parts, Axe Returned to Steam on 11 November 2008 at Woody Bay for a dedication ceremony to honour the fallen railwaymen of the First World War
This locomotive spent its entire working life with Kempthorne Prosser Ltd. at their Westfield (Auckland, N.Z.) fertiliser works. Retired in 1966, it was donated to MOTAT and operated there for a short time until boiler repairs were required. After a period on static display, the locomotive was dismantled during the 1970s for restoration. Ultimately the dismantled locomotive was leased to McDonald's Restaurants, and following restoration was on static display at their Paraparaumu establishment from 1987 to 2008, before being returned to MOTAT where it remains in the locomotive shed awaiting restoration to working order.
This was originally built for the British-owned Manila Railway Company and was the lead locomotive of its class. It is now on static display in front of Tutuban station.
Cavite
Dagupan
1007
1907
This saddle tank locomotive was built for Manila Railway and was rebuilt from the original Cavite locomotive. Like Cabanatuan, it is now on static display in front of Tutuban station. One of its parts were damaged.
The Red Cliffs Historical Steam Railway was formed in 1994 under the auspices of the Red Cliffs Rotary Club to operate the restored 'Lukee', that had formerly operated between Red Cliffs railway station and the Red Cliffs pumping station. A two kilometre section of the former 1600mm gauge Red Cliffs – Morkalla branch line has been converted to 610mm gauge for tourist train operation. The train normally operates on the first Sunday of each month from 11am to 4.00pm and on Easter Saturday and the Sundays of the Labour Day and Queens Birthday long weekends. The Train does not operate in January or February because of the fire danger.
^Cartwright R.C., The Llanfair Railway Journal 105, October 1987
^LTC Rolt "The Landscape Trilogy" (2001): combined volume of "Landscape with Machines" (1971), "Landscape with Canals" (1977) and "Landscape with Figures" (1992)
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