Midland Railway No. 2299 "Paget locomotive"

The Midland Railway's Paget locomotive, No. 2299, was an experimental steam locomotive constructed at its Derby Works in 1908 to the design of the General Superintendent Cecil Walter Paget (though Richard Deeley was Locomotive Superintendent at the time).
==Overview==
The locomotive had a total of eight uniflow cylinders arranged in two groups of four placed between the 1st and 2nd and 2nd and 3rd driving axles, with rotary steam distribution valves placed over each; a bronze sleeve in the valve body was rotated to control cutoff. Two were connected to the forward pair of the six driving wheels. Four were connected, two each side to the centre pair, with the final two behind the last pair. These drove a jackshaft which operated and reversed the valves, and cut off was controlled by rotary sleeves. The boiler was large and had an unusual integral firebox, lined with firebricks. Two-wheel pony trucks were fitted front and rear. It was the first 2-6-2 tender locomotive in Great Britain and would be the only one until the LNER Class V2 of 1936.
==Finance==
Paget had initially financed it himself, but unfortunately ran out of money, and the railway made up for the difference. There has been a history on the railways of a distrust of new ideas and Paget and Deeley were not on the best of terms. Lowe suggests that there was great hostility to it.
==Problems==
It had problems with seizing of the phosphor bronze sleeves in the cast iron steam chest, with leakage in the glands and piston rings. In 1912, one of the rotary valves seized while on a test run, the engine blocking the main line for seven hours. As a result, it was put in store at Derby and was broken up in 1918, while Paget was in France commanding the Royal Engineers Railway Operating Division.
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==Further reading==
*Clayton, James, (1945) 'The Paget locomotive' in The railway gazette, 2 November 1945 (also reprinted in booklet form)
*Mills, Bob, (2000) 'The Paget locomotive' in BackTrack, vol. 14, no. 1 (January 2000), pp.21–23
File:Paget-loco 1.webp
File:Paget-loco-2 1.webp
2299 Paget locomotive
Category:Experimental locomotives
Category:2-6-2 locomotives
Category:2-6-2 steam locomotives
Category:Scrapped locomotives
Category:Unique locomotives
Category:Derby Works locomotives
Category:Tender locomotives
Category:Steam locomotives
Category:Locomotives
Category:4 foot 8 1⁄2 inch gauge
Category:Standard gauge locomotives
Category:Built in 1908
Category:United Kingdom
Category:British locomotives
Category:British steam locomotives
Category:Midland Railway (UK)
Category:LMS locomotives
Category:Standard gauge steam locomotives of Great Britain