Fowler's Ghost

Fowler's fireless locomotive at Edgware Road, October 1862. This is the only known image of the locomotive.[1]

"Fowler's Ghost" is the nickname given to an experimental fireless 2-4-0 steam locomotive designed by John Fowler and built in 1861 for use on the Metropolitan Railway, London's first underground railway. The broad gauge locomotive used exhaust recondensing techniques and a large quantity of fire bricks to retain heat and prevent the emission of smoke and steam in tunnels.

After trials on the Great Western Railway in 1861 and in London in 1862, the locomotive was considered a failure; on its first trial it was near to exploding, and problems with steaming and pressure retention were never overcome. The locomotive was sold in 1865 with the intention to convert it into a conventional steam engine, but it was quietly scrapped in 1895.[2]

The locomotive was considered an embarrassment to its designer, the respected engineer John Fowler (who later designed the Forth Bridge), and its existence was denied for many years; the sobriquet "Fowler's Ghost" was given to it by The Railway Magazine in a retrospective article in January 1901, and this has subsequently become the standard reference name for the engine.[3]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference self was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Bennett, Alfred (1927). "XIX". Chronicles of Boulton's Siding. Locomotive Publishing Company. pp. 190–195.
  3. ^ The Railway Magazine. Vol. 109. IPC Business Press. 1963. p. 393.