fr-single-fairlie

The Ffestiniog Railway Single Fairlie is the 0-4-4T articulated narrow-gauge locomotive Taliesin (No. 14), a single-bogie Fairlie tank engine — the smaller, single-ended version of the celebrated Double Fairlie design invented by Robert Fairlie. Where the Double Fairlie places two powered bogies beneath a double-ended locomotive body with cabs at each end, the Single Fairlie uses one powered bogie with the boiler and firebox mounted above it, with a single cab and a conventional unpowered rear truck, giving a smaller and lighter articulated locomotive suited to lighter duties or as a reserve to the main fleet.

Taliesin is a modern replica of the original Taliesin locomotives that the Ffestiniog Railway operated in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, built in 1999 using original Fairlie components and modern reproductions to create an authentic working Single Fairlie that demonstrates the design in operation alongside the larger Double Fairlie locomotives. The Fairlie articulated locomotive concept was once widely exported from Britain to railways worldwide, and Taliesin gives visitors the opportunity to see the single-bogie version of this historic design in active service on the railway where Fairlie's original Double Fairies have operated continuously since 1869.