Fowler's Ghost (episode)

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This is the article about **the episode**, you might be looking for the locomotive

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## Fowler's Ghost

### Director

Shane Sowter

**Fowler's Ghost** is an episode in The Series 1990s. In this episode, Hughes finally explains the story of the mysterious "Fowler's Ghost" locomotive that he has mentioned so many times. he also tell the part about how he first heard about this mysterious locomotive.

## Plot

It is 1994 and the locomotives were telling ghost stories to scare each other, but only Stanford is not getting the stories. Kate mentions the time she came face-to-face with the famed "Gladsville Whistler" as a physical locomotive back in 1987, following her return to traffic in March of that year. Jinty soon mentions about the story of a failed Midland design because it wasn't perfectly engineered, which called a "Fowler's Ghost"-type locomotive.

Severn Valley Railway visitor Bradley Manor suddenly starts asking Hughes about this mysterious "Fowler's Ghost", and when did it get its name. Everyone chips in and Hughes finally explains that "Fowler's Ghost" was a locomotive built during the early years of the famed Metropolitan Railway in London and is one of the earliest known fireless locomotives built. Jenny soon breaks Hughes' explanation by mentioning the day she met an actual fireless locomotive working for a power station in Buckinghamshire back in 1949. Hughes quickly silences her and continues to tell about "Fowler's Ghost" and how he knew about.

In the early years of the Metropolitan Railway, the engineer, John Fowler, created the concept to a locomotive running off energy built up by "heat bricks" inside a combustion chamber. The locomotive was built by the famed Robert Stephenson & Company in 1861 and built the gauge by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, meaning that the locomotive was wider than a standard gauge locomotive. Bradley Manor quickly mentions that he knew that Brunel's broad gauge couldn't have worked for a start, before he is told to shut up by Hughes, who is trying to tell the story.

Fowler's design was 2-4-0 with a single two-axle tender, like other tender locomotives in 1861, all but the famed LNWR Bloomers, which had three-axle tenders instead of two. The locomotive was taken to the GWR for testing and nearly had a boiler explosion on this first test. "Unlike us conventional locomotive, the engine couldn't have dropped his fire like us, since he had heat bricks also producing heat," as Hughes explains. Hughes also mentioned that the locomotive only steamed for 7.5 miles, and being interrupted by Clyde, who said was also 12.1 km. Hughes continued his story. In 1862, the locomotive was brought to the route it will soon work on, and tested there as well. The test came out badly.

John Fowler claimed the engine a failure and decided to deny having any knowledge about the mysterious 2-4-0 locomotive. The locomotive was sold to Boulton's Siding and the owner had plans to rebuild the locomotive from a fireless locomotive to a conventional locomotive, "Like us". The owner drew up the design for the new locomotive's boiler but since Boulton's Siding was losing money, thanks to railways no longer needing to rent locomotives and buying from major builders e.g. Neilson, Hunslet, Falcon, Hudswell Clarke and Andrew Barclay, the locomotive wasn't completed, but converted to standard gauge. The engine was scrapped by Beyer Peacock & Company in 1895, with Hughes adding, "Only five years before I was built."

Jenny got confused and mentioned that Hughes was built by Horwich in 1912, built Hughes reveals the fact that he was really built as an L&YR Aspinall class 27 0-6-0 by Horwich in 1900, but was known before his rebuild in 1912 by his number. In January 1901, the firelighter came with a copy of the newly released Railway Magazine containing an article he was interested in. No. 966 (Hughes) asked what was it called and the article just referred the locomotive as "Fowler's Ghost", because not many people saw it. Ever since the day he heard about the article about "Fowler's Ghost", and read it by the firelighter and other members of Lancashire & Yorkshire staff during his rests between duties, No. 966, and later named 'Hughes' after George Hughes rebuilt him to a class 28 in 1912, used the term "Fowler's Ghost" for any failed locomotive design or an engine that has a history of problems.

After the engines fall asleep, Hughes goes outside the station yard of Gladsville and looks at the abandoned goods shed, then leaves after saying these words: "I know you're there. You better keep a good eye on the young ones, since you're still needed here." A mysterious tender locomotive in the form of a 4-4-0 steams away and fades into the darkness, right in front of Hughes.

## Characters

* Jenny
* Hughes/No. 966
* Bradley Manor
* Clyde
* Stanford
* Kate
* Jinty
* Capulet
* "Fowler's Ghost" (does not speak)
* "Leanne"/Leander (does not speak)
* "The Gladsville Whistler" (mentioned)
* Isaac Watt Boulton (mentioned)
* LNWR Bloomers (mentioned)
* Sir John Fowler (seen in pictures)
* Barton (does not speak)
* MR Paget locomotive (mentioned)

## Locations

* Gladsville MPD
* Gladsville Dockyard
* Gladsville station
* Robert Stephenson & Co, Newcastle
* Beyer Peacock & Co, Gorton
* Boulton's Siding's shed and workshops
* Hanwell railway station
* Unknown Metropolitan Railway location

## Trivia

This episode is based on the episode 'Fowler's Ghost' in The British Railway Series, with its ending inspired from the 10th episode of The 110th Platoon.

This tells the story of the real life locomotive, and refers to where the name "Fowler's Ghost" came from.

All scenes with the scratch built model of "Fowler's Ghost" are built from scratch, along with the track width.

This was the episode with Hood's middle cylinder creating pain, which was to be followed in the next episode.

Originally, the ghost engine was supposed to be "Fowler's Ghost" itself. But to keep things historically accurate, Shane Sowter changed it Barton, the powerful paranormal L&YR 4-4-0 who is said to protect the railway.

This episode serves as the Halloween special for Mini Series 1990s, with a build-up of two Sudrian-set episodes (Photographic Premonition and The Hackenbeck Witch).

The events of this episode take place in October 1996.