Irish Mail, happy birthday ⬇️
Irish Mail was built in 1903 by the Hunslet Engine Company for Dinorwic Slate Quarries as one of the 13-strong, ‘Alice’ class of Quarry Hunslets carrying works number 823. This class of engine is fitted with 7inch x 10inch cylinders and the boiler has a working pressure of 140psi.
The Hunslet Engine Company was established in 1864 and the Company built its first narrow gauge locomotive for the slate industry in 1870. The Company went on to build dozens of small steam locomotives for the numerous quarries in North Wales.
Dinorwic Slate Quarry comprised of a series of terraces up the mountainside which were linked by rope-worked inclines. Each terrace had its own railway, most with a steam locomotive and some with more than one. Locomotives would tend to spend a long time on one level and would generally only move if they required a major overhaul in the workshops at the base of the Quarry and may then go back into service on a different level. The Quarry was one of the largest slate quarries in the world and in its heyday, at the end of the 19th Century, employed over 3,000 people.
Irish Mail, happy birthday ⬇️
Irish Mail was built in 1903 by the Hunslet Engine Company for Dinorwic Slate Quarries as one of the 13-strong, ‘Alice’ class of Quarry Hunslets carrying works number 823. This class of engine is fitted with 7inch x 10inch cylinders and the boiler has a working pressure of 140psi.
The Hunslet Engine Company was established in 1864 and the Company built its first narrow gauge locomotive for the slate industry in 1870. The Company went on to build dozens of small steam locomotives for the numerous quarries in North Wales.
Dinorwic Slate Quarry comprised of a series of terraces up the mountainside which were linked by rope-worked inclines. Each terrace had its own railway, most with a steam locomotive and some with more than one. Locomotives would tend to spend a long time on one level and would generally only move if they required a major overhaul in the workshops at the base of the Quarry and may then go back into service on a different level. The Quarry was one of the largest slate quarries in the world and in its heyday, at the end of the 19th Century, employed over 3,000 people.