LION CHASES THE STOPPER

I’d like to make a correction and some additions to Anthony Dawson’s very interesting article on Lion (SR476), having been involved with it when it was at Steamport, Southport. John Whiteley’s photograph actually shows Lion arriving at (not departing from) Southport from Burscough Bridge on the brake trials on May 12. I can be sure of this as I had hitched a lift from Burscough on my way home from work. With me in the Third Class carriage were three other former Steamport directors, Ken Chynoweth, Derek Foster and Chris Forrest. On the footplate, Adrian Jarvis from Liverpool Museum and locomotive inspector Frank White accompanied the BR crew. Lion had really got into her stride on the way back to Southport and kept getting ‘yellows’ as we were catching up with the all-stations Wigan-Southport DMU which was running one section ahead of us. Lion, running light engine, had first arrived at Steamport under its own steam over BR metals on March 24. Having appeared at the exhibition at Southport station in April 1980, we set about fitting the emergency air brakes on the tender and coupling it to some Liverpool & Manchester Railway replica carriages. The lorrytype brake actuators were new components and fitted in such a way as to not affect the fabric of the vehicles. The brake reservoirs could be recharged using a petrol-driven compressor, which sat on the back of the tender tank. Specialist welding firm Metalok also returned to work on a crack in one of the driving wheels. Lion left us for ‘Rocket 150’ on May 16, running 20 mins behind ‘Jinty’ No. 7298. It returned for six weeks in July 1980, and on a few more occasions in the early ’80s.

Ray Hulock,

by email