LONDON & NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY ‘G2A’/‘SUPER D’ NO. 49395 (2005-14)
Despite their enormous contribution to railway history, freight locomotives don’t figure heavily in the National Collection. Indeed, the NRM’s goods engines haven’t exactly enjoyed the same kudos and cachet as their express passenger counterparts, often being hidden away far from the core collection, or removed from it altogether, as in the case of ‘28XX’ No. 2818.
This unloved existence was certainly true of unique London & North Western Railway ‘Super D’ No. 49395, which spent decades after withdrawal being moved from pillar to post – being stored variously at Crewe, Stratford, Leicester, Brighton, Leicester again, Telford, Blists Hill (in the open air), Tyseley and Butterley – without ever finding a permanent home. Furthermore, when it was withdrawn in November 1959 with a cracked cylinder block and buckled valve gear caused by a water carry-over incident, it was never expected to run again.
In view of this, it was all the more surprising and welcome when pop music supremo and staunch enthusiast Pete Waterman – better known to enthusiasts then for his involvement with Flying Scotsman – approached the NRM in 1993 offering to sponsor this tired and overlooked 0-8-0’s restoration to working order.
Originally expected to take two to three years, No. 49395’s restoration eventually took 12 and cost £660,000, with the engine first steaming at what was then Pete’s LNWR Heritage headquarters at Crewe in June 2005. Compared with the other engines in this survey which received little more than a re-tube before they were put back in traffic, the ‘Super D’s’ restoration was thorough, including stitching the infamous crack in the cylinder block, replacing the front three feet of the locomotive’s left-hand side frame plate, and making a new right-hand piston rod.
Also, unlike the majority of the NRM’s ‘one hit wonders’, No. 49395 was exclusively used on preserved railways
– not surprising given it was never designed to run at more than 40mph. It debuted at the Churnet Valley Railway later in 2005, and ran at numerous heritage lines – including the Great Central, Llangollen and North Yorkshire Moors railways – before bowing out in January 2014 at the East Lancashire Railway with leaking boiler tubes.
Pete Waterman expressed at the time his intention to put the ‘Super D’ through a second overhaul, but those plans have yet to come to fruition, and with the publication of the NRM’s Operational Rail Vehicles Strategy – which does not list No. 49395 as one of the engines the museum would consider returning to steam – it seems any hope enthusiasts had of seeing this unique 0-8-0 back in action has been extinguished.