INDUSTRIAL ROUND-UP
Bagnall 0-4-0ST Works No. 2623 Hawarden: The boiler of Foxfield Railway-based Hawarden is receiving repairs at Heritage Boilers. A new copper inner firebox doorplate is being fitted, and the outer firebox will receive a new steel wrapper and side plates. It is intended that the boiler of the 1940-built locomotive will return to Foxfield fully certified and ready to be fitted to the mechanically complete locomotive for a swift return to traffic. Manning Wardle 0-6-0ST Works No. 1601 ‘Matthew Murray’: At 115 years young, ‘Matthew Murray’ has stepped in to help the Elsecar Heritage Railway through a brief steam shortage. Moving across Yorkshire from the Middleton Railway on May 16, the ‘L’ class machine will be reunited with under-overhaul Hunslet 0-6-0ST Hastings and Sentinel 0-4-0VBT Gervase (itself a rebuild of a Manning Wardle ‘H’ 0-4-0ST). All three were early arrivals at the Kent & East Sussex Railway in preservation. Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns 0-4-0ST Works No. 7063, No. 15: ‘Eustace Forth’ was a late addition to the Tanfield Railway’s June 16/17 gala line-up. The 1942-built machine spent its entire commercial career on the banks of the River Tyne, within walking distance of the Tanfield’s current operations, but has never been back to Tyneside since it left for preservation in 1972. Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0ST Works No. 1544, Slough Estates No. 3: Middleton Railway-based Slough Estates No. 3 came back into traffic in early June after boiler attention. The repairs required the tank of the 1924-built locomotive to be lifted clear of the boiler for attention to a troublesome rivet. It has been a Middleton resident since 2011.