THE PASSING OF THE LOCOMOTIVE

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1649, 7 October 1903, Page 35 (Supplement)

THE PASSING OF THE LOCOMOTIVE

That the steam age for locomotion is passing inquires no better exemplification than was provided in Liverpool recently. Eighteen steam locomotives and nearly a hundred carriages, that once did excellent service on the new electrified Mersey railway, were put up for auction, along with other obselete plant, but the auctioneer pleaded in vain for substantial offers. The engines were specially built to negotiate the steep gradients of the Mersey tun nel railway, some of w'hich are one in 27, and as the railway is only about five miles in length, it w r as necessary for them to be powerful and heavy rather than fast. One of the engines, the “Mersey,” built in 1887, had travelled a total of 336,000 miles ; another, the “Victoria,” had covered 300,000 miles in the same period. The whole of the lo comotives, which had travelled in the aggregate 5,167.000 miles appeared strong enough and nt enough to shift a mountain, but tnere was evidently no further need for them, and the auctioneer’s hammer never fell on a single offer for engines or carriages.