Caledonian Railway Dunalastair

The Caledonian Railway (Scotland), with its very hilly main lines from Glasgow to Carlisle and to Aberdeen, was notable for the fine stud of locomotives designed by J. F. Mclntosh between 1895 and the First World War.

The most famous individual engine was undoubtedly the big 4-6-0 'Cardean,' which for many years worked the West Coast 'Corridor ' between Glasgow and Carlisle, but the engine which had the greater effect on British locomotive design in general was the 4-4-0 constructed at St. Rollox works in 1896 and named 'Dunalastair,' after the Pitlochry estate of the C.R. Chairman.

This was the first British locomotive to be designed on the principle that power and efficiency depends on an adequate-sized boiler and firebox, and the cult of the big boiler dates very largely from this engine.

Fifteen were built in 1896, with 6ft 6in wheels and 18in x 26in cylinders, and during the next nine years three further batches appeared, each a development of the last but all known as 'Dunalastairs.'

For many years the eighty-seven en­gines of these four varieties formed the principal express passenger power of the Caledonian, and it is of interest to recall that a number of identical machines were built by Neilson Reid for the Belgian State Railways.

Two ' Dunalastairs,' Nos. 48 and 121, were involved in the Quintinshill rail disaster in May 1915, killing 226 people it is still Britain's worst rail accident to date; No. 121 was so badly damaged that it was beyond repair, but a few survived into British Rail­ways days and one of these, formerly Caledonian No. 43, is here shown at Perth in B.R. livery.