Unusual Locomotives by Ernest F Carter

Gallery opened: 23 Feb 2021

Updated: 27 Feb 2021

To anyone with an interest in unusual locomotives this book is an iconic reference. It was published in 1960, and I borrowed it from the local public library time after time. I had a hazy notion then that anything 'unusual' must be superior to the run-of-the-mill. It is not usually so.
The book has 217 pages, and covers a very wide range of locomotives, even some of the most obscure, but inevitably there is only room for a limited amount of detail in most cases.

Left: Front cover of Unusual Locomotives by Ernest F Carter: pub 1960
Top left is the No 195, a Belgian 2-4-2 locomotive with a triple boiler.
Top right is the Krupp-Zoelly condensing turbine locomotive T18-1001, of 1928.
Centre is the duplex-drive Pennsylvania Railroad T1 locomotive
Bottom left is the Bavarian Type AA-1 Nr.1400 locomotive of 1896, which had an auxiliary booster axle that could be lifted off the rails when not in use.
Bottom right is 'Ramsbottom's engine for Crewe works'. This is the description given to an illustration inside the book. It is not in the rather sketchy index, and I have not so far found a reference to it in the text. It may be there,
At present copies of Unusual Locomotives go for between Ł16 and Ł33 on the Web, which I think is very reasonable.

Left: Back cover of Unusual Locomotives by Ernest F Carter: pub 1960
Top left is the LNWR Columbine, an influentual design because of its outside cylinders. It is preserved in the Science Museum Group Collection.
Top right is a locomotive of the Manitou & Pike's Peak rack railway.
Centre is the Kitson-Still steam-diesel locomotive.
Bottom left is a crane locomotive of 1868.
Bottom right is an Aveling and Porter engine at the Croydon gas works