Earl of Airlie

The Dundee & Newtyle Railway, opened in 1831, climbed out of Dundee by way of three steep self-acting inclines worked by stationary winding engines, with locomotives only required to work the level sections at the top of each incline. For these short level stretches the railway commissioned a small number of locally-built locomotives from J. & C. Carmichael of Dundee. Earl of Airlie, completed in 1833, used an unusual 0-2-4 wheel arrangement: a single pair of driving wheels at the front, with two pairs of trailing carrying wheels supporting a long firebox and water tank. The layout was effectively a primitive saddle-tank engine on a long wheelbase.

Earl of Airlie worked the Dundee & Newtyle from 1833. As the railway was progressively converted to locomotive working over the inclines (with new alignments built to bypass the steepest sections), the original Carmichael engines were superseded by more conventional types. Earl of Airlie was withdrawn during the 1850s and scrapped. The original works drawings survive in the National Records of Scotland.

Unusual 0-2-4 layout with a single pair of driving wheels at the front, twin vertical cylinders, integral water tank/firebox structure carried on a four-wheel rear bogie, and a tall chimney. No other British locomotive used this exact wheel arrangement.

• Earl of Airlie (1833, not preserved)