Stephenson Samson

By 1830 the Stockton & Darlington Railway's coal traffic had grown beyond what the original 0-4-0 Locomotion-type engines could handle. Robert Stephenson's response was to extend the established four-coupled layout to six coupled wheels, distributing the increased weight and adhesion across three axles. Samson, delivered in 1830, was the first six-coupled locomotive ever built — the prototype for what would become the standard British heavy freight wheel arrangement.

Mechanically Samson was an enlargement of contemporary Stephenson practice: long horizontal boiler, twin cylinders, and side-rod coupled wheels. The engine ran on the S&DR's heavy mineral trains and proved entirely successful.

Samson entered Stockton & Darlington service in 1830 and worked coal traffic on the railway through the 1830s. As a prototype it was somewhat outclassed by the production 0-6-0s that followed, and the engine was withdrawn during the 1840s. The locomotive has not been preserved, but its layout — two cylinders, six coupled wheels, no leading or trailing axles — became the British 0-6-0 freight engine standard.

0-6-0 chassis with all six wheels coupled by side rods, twin cylinders, and a long horizontal boiler. The first locomotive ever built to this layout.

• Samson (1830, not preserved — the prototype 0-6-0)