FACTFILE: COLLETT ‘1366’ 0-6-0T
The ‘1366’ owes its distinctive shape to the Sharp Stewart 0-6-0STS inherited from the Cornish Minerals Railway. Built in the 1870s, they were a bit long in the tooth by the turn of the 20th century, so Churchward authorised the building of a virtual copy, including Allan valvegear. The five ‘1361s’, built in 1910, worked alongside the CMR ‘1392’ 0-6-0STS. By the 1930s, the remaining CMR ‘1392s’ desperately needed replacing, so Charles Collett’s team put together a modernised version, with pannier tanks, a Belpaire firebox and Stephenson valvegear. Six were built in 1934 to replace ‘1392s’ around Swindon. However, Nos. 1367/68 and 1370 - later joined by No. 1369 - moved to Weymouth, where they proved ideal for use on the tramway. Weymouth shed passed to the Southern Region in 1958. This was hugely fortuitous for the region’s management as the short wheelbase of the ‘1366s’ made them the perfect replacement for the Beattie ‘Well Tanks’ on the Wenford Bridge branch. Nos. 1367-69 were transferred to Wadebridge in 1962; their three classmates had been withdrawn by the Western Region by this point. The ‘1366s’ reign in Cornwall was brief and they were withdrawn in October 1964. Nos. 1367 and 1368 were sold to the Woodham Brothers scrapyard at Barry, and were two of the locomotives that never escaped. No. 1369, however, was bought for preservation and is in working order at the South Devon Railway.