L'Aigle (lit. "the eagle") was a 2-4-0 Porter-type steam locomotive built by Ernest Goüin et Cie. for the L'Ouest Railway in France in 1855.
Design[]
L'Aigle was a 2-4-0 steam locomotive built for the L'Ouest Railway in France in 1855 by Ernest Goüin et Cie; it was designed by Aimé Blavier and a Mr. Larpent. It was numbered 261 and was displayed at the International Exhibition in Paris. It had the largest driving wheels ever fitted to a steam locomotive at 9 foot 4 inches at the time, although the record for largest wheel is held by GWR's Hurricane at 10 feet.
The Boiler[]
The cylindrical "steam-dome" is to the left, and the firebox to the right; to the left of the firebox there is a combustion-chamber.
Unfortunately this does not match up too well with the side-view just above, although they are consecutive drawings from the same source. The drawing above appears to show a horizontal pipe connecting the upper boiler to the steam-dome, and also indicates an angled pipe coming from the rear of the upper boiler and leading to the safety valves.
Note that a relatively small part of the boiler is taken up by fire-tubes, and the shortage of steam-raising capacity was probably simply due to a lack of heating surface.
Problems/Flaws[]
Due to the wheels being so big that the axle was too high for a normal boiler to be placed between the frame members, so they had to use a boiler that was divided in two (possibly two boilers) and the driving axles passed between them, when trying to maintain it for maintenance it was a nightmare for the maintenance crews, there is also no direct evidence of it being used in revenue service due to it's weird design, some people in France made claims that this engine was very fast and reaching 100 mph, either ran at twice the speed of the Crampton, or to have pulled a 100 ton load up a 1/100 incline at the same speed as the Crampton could on the level, depending on which account you believe. There appear to have been some vague claims floating about that L'Aigle had reached- or was capable of reaching- 160 km/hr (100 mph). 160 km/hr was not officially reached in France until 1889 and there was no direct evidence on this stuff being true and it was possibly propaganda.
Disposition[]
It's unknown what happened to it given the fact that it isn't around anymore it possible that it would have been scrapped after leaving the international exhibition in Paris where it was shown off at.
Gallery[]
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