rhdr-mountain

The Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway Mountain Class are two 4-8-2 eight-coupled express steam locomotives built by Davey Paxman of Colchester in 1925 for the RH&DR — Hercules (No. 5) and Samson (No. 6) — representing the heavier, more powerful type in the RH&DR's original steam fleet alongside the 4-6-2 Pacific class. The Mountain 4-8-2 wheel arrangement — rare on any gauge in Britain — gave the RH&DR locomotives exceptional haulage capability on the heavy summer passenger trains that ran between Hythe and Dungeness across the flat Romney Marsh in Kent, where the 15 in gauge track could carry trains of a dozen or more miniature coaches laden with holiday passengers.

The Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, opened in 1927 by Captain J.E.P. Howey and Count Louis Zborowski (posthumously), was the most ambitious realisation of the 15 in gauge passenger railway concept — a 13½-mile double-track mainline miniature railway operating at genuine speed with signal boxes, level crossings, and a locomotive fleet capable of main-line performance at reduced scale. Both Mountain class locomotives remain active on the RH&DR, which continues to operate one of the most celebrated miniature steam railways in the world.