This is an example of Barclay’s ‘simplified’ fireless design of locomotive. The pressure vessel which replaces a boiler would be filled with a pressurised mixture of water and steam, and the locomotive could then work while the water gradually flashed into useful steam as the vessel pressure fell. This arrangement, with no fire, could be used in the vicinity of refinery plant or conveniently whenever there was an available steam supply such as at a thermal power station.
Brimsdown power stations were in the London borough of Enfield, on the Lea Navigation. Electricity is still generated on the site.
In 1975, the locomotive, then owned by the Central Electricity Generating Board, moved to Fleetwood Power Station, Lancashire, before becoming the property of the Museum of Science & Industry, Manchester. The Museum donated the locomotive to SRPS in 2005, and the National Fund for Acquisitions grant aided the transport cost.
