ROBERT STEPHENSON & HAWTHORNS 0-4-0ST No. 7063 EUSTACE FORTH
In the latter half of the ‘noughties’, Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns 0-4-0 saddle tank No. 7063 Eustace Forth was a regular runner at both the National Railway Museum in York, and at Locomotion, the NRM outstation at Shildon, in Co. Durham. The 1942-built RSH, which spent its industrial career shunting coal wagons at Dunston ‘B’ Power Station in Gateshead, had been saved for preservation by the Hexham Rolling Stock Group (now disbanded), and was taken into the National Collection in 1978. As mentioned above, it was regularly used on brake van trains for museum visitors, and in its pristine CEGB green livery, was also the perfect ‘Percy’ at NRM ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ events - the epitome of what the Rev. Wilbert Awdry might have described as ‘a really useful engine’. The locomotive worked to the end of its boiler ticket in 2009, at which time the museum anticipated it would be put through a heavy general overhaul - its third as a working engine in the National Collection - and be fit for a further ten years of operation. It was described around that time as being ‘in good mechanical order’. But initial examinations can be deceiving, and in early 2014 NRM curatorial staff sought approval to de-accession the RSH saddle tank, painting in a very different light. The engine was said to be in poor condition, needing a new boiler barrel, new tyres and possibly a new firebox before it could run again. The cost of repairs, assessed in 2004 at c.£30,000, had more than doubled, the museum contended, and the locomotive was incomplete, for buffers and other items had been borrowed from other engines in order to make it operational. “In terms of an operating locomotive for the NRM, Eustace Forth does not fit our requirements”, the museum said and galvanising the grounds for disposal, it pointed out that the engine was also duplicated in the National Collection by another RSH four-wheeler, the 1951-built former Agecroft Power Station RSH No. 3, domiciled at Manchester’s Museum of Science & Industry. What’s more, there was a newly formed locomotive group at the Foxfield Railway (the 7063 Group) where the engine had already been placed on loan, that was ready and willing to restore Eustace Forth, at its own expense. The transfer of the engine to Foxfield, as a gift, was duly authorised by the Science Museum Group Trustees, and the locomotive ceased to be part of the National Collection in August 2014. Its boiler has now passed its steam test and been returned to the frames, and it is hoped that the engine will return to action later this year.