1 68 Book of Locomotives 



200 machines in her class. And there will 

 be No. 269, which every man in the shed 

 will tell you is the very worst engine that 

 ever had a man on its footplate! Quite 

 useless to ask why this should be so, the 

 man will scratch his head and say, " There 

 it is, and if you don't believe me ask old 

 Bill there who has been with engines forty- 

 five years he'll tell you the same." It 

 would appear that to give an engine a 

 bad name seems to mean that she will 

 earn it. 



What is the secret of 269? The only 

 reasonable explanation I have ever been 

 able to glean is that when she was 

 being built her frames were laid slightly 

 out of truth, that the fact was not dis- 

 covered in her trial runs, and so she has 

 continued, probably getting a little worse 

 each year. 



Reports have been made upon her un- 

 satisfactory work, she has been to the shops 

 and come back again no better. So she is 

 allowed to go on until she needs radical 

 re-building; then the chances are that her 



