A switcher locomotive, shunter locomotive, or shifter locomotive is a locomotive used for maneuvering railway vehicles over short distances. Switchers do not usually move trains over long distances, instead they typically assemble trains in order for another locomotive to take over. Switchers often operate in a railyard or make short transfer runs. They may serve as the primary motive power on short branch lines or switching and terminal railroads.
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 0-4-0 represents one of the simplest possible types, that with two axles and four coupled wheels, all of which are driven. The wheels on the earliest four-coupled locomotives were connected by a single gear wheel, but from 1825 the wheels were usually connected with coupling rods to form a single driven set.
Brush Traction was a manufacturer and maintainer of railway locomotives in Loughborough, England whose operations have now been merged into the Wabtec company's Doncaster UK operations.
The Ganz Machinery Works Holding is a Hungarian holding company. Its products are related to rail transport, power generation, and water supply, among other industries.
The Vulcan Foundry Limited was an English locomotive builder sited at Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire.
The Steeple Grange Light Railway is a narrow-gauge heritage railway visitor attraction near Wirksworth in Derbyshire, England. Opened in 1985 on the trackbed of a disused branch line, it uses industrial locomotives and rolling stock from disused mines, quarries, and steelworks around the country.
Manning Wardle was a steam locomotive manufacturer based in Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.
Dick, Kerr and Company was a locomotive and tramcar manufacturer based in Kilmarnock, Scotland and Preston, England.
The Leeds Industrial Museum at Armley Mills is a museum of industrial heritage located in Armley, near Leeds, in West Yorkshire, Northern England. The museum includes collections of textile machinery, railway equipment and heavy engineering amongst others.
The Drewry Car Co was a railway locomotive and railcar manufacturer and sales organisation from 1906 to 1984. At the start and the end of its life it built its own products, for the rest of the time it sold vehicles manufactured by sub-contractors. It was separate from the lorry-builder, Shelvoke & Drewry, but it is believed that James Sidney Drewry was involved with both companies.
The Leeds Forge Company manufactured corrugated furnaces for marine steam engine boilers and pressed steel railway rolling stock.
Thomas Green & Son, Ltd. were engineers who manufactured a wide range of products at the Smithfield Foundry, Leeds, United Kingdom
Robert Hudson Ltd was a major international supplier of light railway materials, based in Gildersome, near Leeds, England. The name was later changed to Robert Hudson (Raletrux) Ltd.
Gmeinder GmbH was a German locomotive and engineering company based in Mosbach. Its products included diesel engines, small locomotives (shunters) and other railway locomotive parts. Much of its business came through the German railways, though it also exported to the rest of Europe and the rest of the world.
A mine railway, sometimes pit railway, is a railway constructed to carry materials and workers in and out of a mine. Materials transported typically include ore, coal and overburden. It is little remembered, but the mix of heavy and bulky materials which had to be hauled into and out of mines gave rise to the first several generations of railways, at first made of wooden rails, but eventually adding protective iron, steam locomotion by fixed engines and the earliest commercial steam locomotives, all in and around the works around mines.
James & Fred Howard of Britannia Ironworks, Bedford, later known simply as Howards, were one of the largest English makers of agricultural equipment, steam traction engines, and light railway equipment. At The Great Exhibition of 1851 they exhibited a range of horse-drawn implements. After World War I, Howards became part of AGE, Agricultural & General Engineers, along with many of the other British makers of similar machinery.
Joseph Booth & Bros was an English company notable for making cranes used in large construction projects.
A steam motor is a form of steam engine used for light locomotives and light self-propelled motor cars used on railways. The origins of steam motor cars for railways go back to at least the 1850s, if not earlier, as experimental economizations for railways or railroads with marginal budgets. These first examples, at least in North America, appear to have been fitted with light reciprocating engines, and either direct or geared drives, or geared-endless chain drives. Most incorporated a passenger carrying coach attached to the engine and its boiler. Boiler types varied in these earlier examples, with vertical boilers dominant in the first decade and then with very small diameter horizontal boilers. Other examples of steam motor cars incorporated an express-baggage or luggage type car body, with coupling apparatus provided to allow the steam motor car to draw a light passenger coach.
Baguley Cars Ltd was a British engineering company, specialising in railway locomotives. it was founded in 1911 by Ernest E. Baguley and subsequently acquired by Drewry Car Co to form Baguley-Drewry in 1964.
