In 1864 S. W. Haughton retired as locomotive superintendent of the DW&WR indicating the stress of maintenance of the 30 engines of the DW&WR as a factor, the workload being much greater than in 1849 when he had begun that role for the Dublin and Kingstown Railway (D&KR).[b] His replacement, William Meikle, who himself was to retire with ill-heath within the year faced a pressing need to replace the ageing locomotives in use on the Westland Row to Kingstown and Bray services.[c][5]
Meikle had six tenders for the supply of between six and eight locomotives with Grendon of Drogheda quoting the highest at £2,000 per unit. Neilson and Company won with the cheapest quote of £1,564 and initially supplied six locomotives in 1965. A seventh added at a later date seems to be related to Banshee being exhibited at the 1865 Dublin International Exhibition of Arts and Manufactures.[1][6][d]
The engines were given the name of "supernatural personages": Ariel; Elfin; Kate Kearney;[e]Kelpie; Oberon; Titania; and Banshee.[1]
Design
The locomotives used coal as fuel,[7] as opposed to the earliest D&KR engines which burned coke. They had straight weatherboards and were noted for a generous proportion of brass and copper-topped chimneys. Known to be painted green in the 1870s they were later painted is what was described as "ugly red" and modified with the fitting of cabs and stove-pipe chimneys.[8]
Murray notes the low power design was little better than the prior Burgoyne class.[1]
They were designed for the Westland Row to Bray coastal commuter route where they operated almost for the majority of their lifetime. Unusually for DW&WR locomotives they bore names rather than numbers though this was consistent practice with the previous practice on the D&KR section for which they were designed.[9]
Ariel was noted as the first to operate over the Dublin Loop Line to Amiens Street and last to be withdrawn.[8][7]
In an incident at BrayBanshee suffered a burst boiler killing both the fireman and driver.[8] The locomotive was repaired and was sold to Fisher and Le Fanu. Oberton and Elfin went to Murphy's Brewery possibly at Bantry and Baltimore respectively.[7]
Murray suggests with their relatively short life and low power they were not a satisfactory investment perhaps evidenced by the fact none were rebuilt and Shepherds almost notes they were likely not successful.[1][3]
Notes
↑ Ariel Class is not an official name but a convenient mechanism for referring to the class. The DW&WR in common with most Irish railway companies of the nineteenth century did not formally designate locomotive classes.
↑ At the D&KR in 1849 he also had other responsibilities
↑ These would have been drawn from the 11 2-2-2T tank engines passed from the D&KR in 1856, the four 20 ton locomotives of the Burgoyne class and the remainder based on the tank rebuild of the original Vauxhall engine.[4]
↑ Banshee appears to have been exhibited at the exhibition as a DW&WR locomotive according to the catalogue whilst Murray says it was adopted by the DW&WR afterwards. Neilson had an adjacent stand at the exhibition displaying photographs of their locomotives
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Neilson Locomotive Banshee, the one which appeared in the 1865 Dublin exhibition, in photographic livery Retrieved 18 October 2019