Designed by Henry Greenly and built in 1923 by Davey Paxman of Colchester, the locomotive was equally at home hauling trains of heavy stone, or the increasingly busy passenger services on the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway. The original Lentz valve gear was replaced in 1928 by Walschaerts gear and for a brief period a steam tender was added. A new tender was added in 1970. For many years painted green, the loco is currently in black livery. The Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway is a 15 in (381mm) narrow-gauge heritage railway, running seven miles from Ravenglass to Dalegarth Station near Boot in the valley of Eskdale, in the Lake District. At Ravenglass the line ends at Ravenglass railway station on the Cumbrian Coast Line, where this photo was taken. Intermediate stations and halts are at Muncaster Mill, Miteside, Murthwaite, Irton Road, Eskdale Green, Fisherground and Beckfoot. The railway is owned by a private company and supported by a preservation society. The oldest locomotive is River Irt, parts of which date from 1894, while the youngest is the diesel-hydraulic Douglas Ferreira, built in 2005. The line is known locally as La'al Ratty and its 3-foot gauge predecessor as Owd Ratty.

Inside the cab of 1922 Etat Pacific 231G558 at the head of the 11.15 train to Pontrieux in Puimpol station, northern Brittany. Since no-one else seemed to be interested in looking round the cab I introduced myself to one of the numerous support crew members who invited me up. Although the basics are the same as British locomotives the details are clearly different. The regulator is on the right above the firehole door (with two spring-loaded catches for some reason), the "meat slicer" reverser is on the left with the air brake valve above it. The firehole door is opened by pulling down the large vertical counterweight but I'm not sure why there are two of them. The various gauges must read boiler pressure, high & low steam chest pressure, brake pressure, etc but it's all in metric so I couldn't immediately work out which was which and as the train was about to go couldn't really ask the crew. The small brass plate beneath the regulator reads "max speed 130 km/hour" which is approx. 81mph but it is restricted to 100 km/hour these days. The firebox is very wide with an area of 46sq ft.