Southport veteran returns to Lancashire 20 years on

Diminutive Peckett ‘M5’ Whitehead is set to make a return to Lancashire after two decades, to star in the Ribble Steam Railway industrial steam gala on April 1/2. The visit by the 1908-built 0-4-0ST will reunite it with much of the line’s locomotive fleet. Whitehead was based at the ex-British Railways shed at Southport, former home of the group which now runs the Ribble Steam Railway, until closure in 1997. The Bristol-built locomotive was one of two industrials that worked train services on the last day of public operation at Southport. Formerly a Welsh resident, Whitehead (Works No. 1163) was acquired for preservation in 1966 from the Whitehead Hill and Co. Oakfield Wire Works near Newport. The firm also owned another Peckett, named Hill, which was scrapped when the works closed. Whitehead originally worked at Cefnstylle Colliery near Swansea, where it carried the name Cefnstylle. It is now based at the Midland Railway - Butterley. At the Ribble gala, it will be joined by three resident locomotives: unique Grant Ritchie 0-4-0ST Kinglassie Colliery No. 21, Bagnall 0-6-0ST Works No. 2680, running as Preston Corporation ‘Courageous’, and ex-British Steel Corby Hawthorn Leslie 0-6-0ST No. 21 ‘Linda’.