Some Locomotive Freaks 191 



As it was, many of the earliest machines 

 blew up through their boilers being too 

 weak, which did not help matters. 



But all the locomotive freaks do not 

 belong to the earlier days. Indeed, there 

 are some running now big, hefty looking 

 fellows these, which are largely experi- 

 mental. Their drivers consider them 

 freakish. 



There were a hundred engines on the 

 old North-Western which many railway 

 men classed as freaks. These were the 

 Webb three-cylinder compounds. The idea 

 their designer had in mind was that he 

 would save coal by using the steam twice, 

 and that he would secure all the free run- 

 ning of single-drivers, with all the power 

 of the four- coupled machines. 



Now, compounding to save coal is excel- 

 lent, and some of the best engines on the 

 old North-Western metals to-day are com- 

 pounds of Derby design: but these engines 

 of Webbs were freakish in performance, if 

 not in actual design. Some days they ran 

 extraordinarily well, on others, all the 



