Agenoria (locomotive)

Agenoria

Agenoria at the National Railway Museum, York

Type and origin Power type Steam Builder Foster, Rastrick and Company Build date 1829

Specifications Configuration 0-4-0 Gauge 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge Fuel type Coal Boiler 48 in (1.219 m) dia. 10 ft (3.05 m) long Cylinders 2 Vertical Cylinder size 8.5 in × 36 in (216 mm × 914 mm)

Career Operators John Bradley & Co Retired c1864 Current owner National Railway Museum, York Disposition static display

The Agenoria was an early steam locomotive built by the Foster, Rastrick and Co partnership of Stourbridge, England. It first ran on 2 June 1829 along the Kingswinsford Railway which was a three mile long line linking mines in the Shut End area of the Black Country with a canal basin at Ashwood on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal

In 1823, James Foster, who controlled the firm John Bradley & Co., took a lease of land at Shut End, Kingswinford from J.H.H. Foley with the aim of exploiting the rich mineral deposits there and building an ironworks. In 1825, Foster wrote to local land owner John William Ward, the 4th Viscount Dudley and Ward proposing to build a railway to transport minerals from both Foster's and Lord Dudley's lands. In 1827 an agreement to construct a rail line to link the Shut End area to a purpose-built canal basin at Ashwood on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal was signed by James Foster and Francis Downing, the mineral agent of Dudley Estate. The locomotive that ran on this line Agenoria was constructed by Foster, Rastrick and Company which was a partnership between James Foster and the engineer John Urpeth Rastrick.

The name Agenoria was taken from a Roman goddess who was supposedly the "Goddess of Industry".

The locomotive was constructed at the New Foundry, Stourbridge which was situated on the other side of the river Stour from John Bradley & Co's Stourbridge Ironworks. The works, which were designed and constructed by John Urpeth Rastrick, were connected to the Stourbridge canal by a tramway. Although the designer Rastrick had many years experience of steam engine construction and railway engineering, the only locomotive he had built before was the Catch Me Who Can, designed by Richard Trevithick. An article in The Engineer from 1890 points out the similarities between the design adopted for Agenoria and that of the celebrated Puffing Billy of 1813-14.