From 1866 Kitson's produced a large proportion of the Midland Railway double-framed goods engines designed by Matthew Kirtley and from 1869 began building a series of engines for Russia. At some time prior to 1884 the factory employed Charles Algernon Parsons OM KCB FRS (13 June 1854 – 11 February 1931) who was engaged in building rocket-powered torpedoes. After leaving Kitsons, the brilliant Parsons went on to invent the Steam Turbine and change the world forever. In 1886 Kitson's assisted its representative E. Jeffreys in the preparation of five designs for the Victorian Railways (Australia), each with standardised components which were interchangeable between the classes. Manufacture of these locomotives was by Victorian colonial builders, except for two examples built at Kitson's Airedale Foundry, Leeds, and exhibited at the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition, held in the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne in 1888, for which the firm received the First Order of Merit in the English Court. The locomotives were a large 0-6-0 and a suburban 2-4-2T. The Kitson designs influenced the Victorian Railways for many years. Kitson built a large order of 4-6-0s for the Cordoba Railway in Argentina during 1889–91, which were among the earliest British examples of this type.