 This sketch of a steam train provided for the D/N railway in 1836 may be "The Trotter" which was the 3rd engine. |
 Post card of the John Bull in the Smithsonian Institute which has a more than passing similarity to the 4th loco on the Dundee / Newtyle line which was also called the John Bull. |
Early in 1834 a third locomotive was built by Stirling of Dundee to the same general design as the first two, and named Trotter.
Niall Ferguson (in The Dundee & Newtyle Railway) has a sketch of the Trotter which looks similar to the above sketch which is on the Scottish Railway Archive web-site.
The 4th locomotive was obtained in 1836 from Robert Stephenson & Co of Newcastle and was called "John Bull". Unlike the other three, this had the wheel configuration 0-4-0
5 years earlier the Robert Stephenson company had provided a locomotive for the Camden and Amboy Railway which was the first to be built in New Jersey. Although it was officially named Stevens (after the company's first president), it was universally known as the John Bull. This locomotive was purchase in 1884 by the Smithsonian Institute where it ran under its own power in 1981 and became thus the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world. Although this is all just coincidence, the picture above is very similar to the sketch which Niall Ferguson drew of the Dundee / Newtyle's John Bull from the Robert Stephenson & Co constructor's drawing for his book.
Please feel free to contact me by e-mail at elliottsimpson@hotmail.com
May 2019