During the 1860s and 1870s, the company built broad-gauge and standard-gauge locomotives, large and small, for many companies in Britain and overseas. Detailed company records from this period have not survived.
Fairlie The company was the largest British builder of the
Fairlie articulated locomotive. Among the first to be built at Bristol was
James Spooner, in 1872, for the
Ffestiniog Railway. Made to the same basic design as the remarkably successful
Little Wonder, constructed by
George England and Co. in 1869, it incorporated many detailed improvements and became the prototype for subsequent Ffestiniog Railway engines built in that company's works at
Boston Lodge. In 1872, on the recommendation of
Sir Charles Fox and Sons, Avonside built two large 42-ton Fairlies for shipment to Canada, one each to the
Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway and the
Toronto and Nipissing Railway. The Avonside Works manager at the time these locomotives were built was Alfred Sacré, the brother of
Charles Sacré, Locomotive Engineer of the
Manchester Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway. Alfred Sacré trained under
Archibald Sturrock at the Doncaster plant of the
Great Northern Railway and in 1872 moved from Avonside to the
Yorkshire Engine Company, Sheffield, where he built more Fairlie types. Avonside locomotives were exported also to Uruguay, where two 1874 Fairlie type locomotives worked in the Ferrocarril y Tranvía del Norte, at Montevideo. In 1874,
New Zealand Railways ordered two types of double Fairlie locomotives from the company. Both the B class and E class double Fairlies were fitted with
Walschaerts valve gear. This was the first use of this technology to be used in New Zealand, and is possibly the first time a British manufacturer supplied it. The B class lasted in service until the late 1880s. The E class were officially written off in 1899, but most were still in use during the
First World War. An single Fairlie was built for the
Swindon, Marlborough and Andover Railway in 1878. This was the first British-based locomotive to use Walschaerts valve gear, which fitted entirely outside the wheelsets, leaving the space between the frames clear for the boiler. In 1878–1879, on the recommendation of
Robert Fairlie, Avonside built the
R class of 18
single Fairlies for the
New Zealand Government Railways. One, single Fairlie number 28 (of 1878) survives at
Reefton.
Locomotives for the Rimutaka incline In 1875 the company built four powerful tank locomotives designed by a Swedish engineer, H.W. Widmark, to operate on the
Fell mountain railway system on the
Rimutaka Incline in the North Island of
New Zealand. These and two later locomotives of very similar design, built by
Neilson and Company, handled the entire traffic for 80 years until the opening of the five mile (8 km) long base tunnel in 1955. Widmark was an inventive engineer who patented a design of steam-operated cylinder cocks which were of great use to Avonside on articulated locomotives since they dispensed with mechanical linkages.
4-6-0 types Avonside was a very early British builder of tender locomotives with a wheel arrangement. Ten such narrow-gauge freight-hauling locomotives, weighing from 20 to 25 tons, were supplied to the
Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway and the
Toronto and Nipissing Railway. These very successful, reliable wood-burning locomotives pre-dated the first significant British domestic railway , the
"Jones Goods", by more than 20 years.
Saddle tanks Between 1880 and 1930, Avonside are best remembered for their construction of and saddle-tank locomotives for industrial and dock-shunting purposes.
Internal combustion Avonside produced their first "oil motor" locomotive in 1913. Diesel and petrol powered locomotives were included in the company's range until 1935. ==Preservation==