NARROWING THE GAP
The Groudle Glen Railway’s Brown Bear, Britain’s newest steam locomotive, was launched in July. With this new-build project completed, THOMAS BRIGHT explores some of Britain’s other narrow gauge new-build schemes.
A look at narrow gauge new-builds
In Steam Railway’s ongoing new-build locomotive survey, there has hitherto been one group of projects not included – narrow gauge engines.
Why? Only one outright main line standard gauge new-build project has been completed in the preservation era, whereas the number of narrow gauge locomotives built over the last four or five decades runs well into double figures.
If you need an example of the successful proliferation of narrow gauge new-build projects, look no further than the Isle of Man. Slowly and stealthily, the Groudle Glen Railway has become an unlikely centre of new-build steam, culminating in the delivery this year of two new steam locomotives. The latter, officially launched into service on July 28, is arguably the most important – Bagnall 2-4-0T Brown Bear.
Remarkably, all but one of this short Manx line’s steam locomotive fleet are new-builds. In addition to Brown Bear
(a replica of the line’s 1906-built Bagnall 2-4-0T Polar Bear, now in permanent exile at the Amberley Museum in Sussex),
there’s Richard Booth’s 1998-built replica Gentle Annie Tramway Bagnall ‘E’ 0-4-2T Annie, and Bagnall ‘Sipat’ 0-4-0ST Otter, completed earlier this year by North Bay Railway Engineering Services. Even the railway’s quirky Wingrove & Rogers battery electric locomotive Polar Bear is new, built by Alan Keef Ltd in 2003. Only the line’s 1896-built Bagnall 2-4-0T Sea Lion is the genuine article.
Brown Bear demonstrates a growing trend among narrow gauge railways, particularly on lines that are either replicating something specific – such as the Ffestiniog or Lynton & Barnstaple railways – or where unusual gauges make sourcing suitable motive power challenging, if not impossible, such as the Corris and Southwold lines. Instead of hiring any old engine, they are taking the plunge by investing in new-build locomotives, emulating designs which originally ran on their respective railways.
Regardless of whether you consider the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway’s 1966-built 2-8-2 River Mite, or the Ffestiniog Railway’s 1979-built double Fairlie Earl of Merioneth, as being the first new-build steam locomotives, new-build has been part of the narrow gauge landscape for decades.
Indeed, Boston Lodge is now in its third century of locomotive construction, having built a second double Fairlie
(David Lloyd George) in 1992, single Fairlie Taliesin in 1999 and replica Lynton & Barnstaple Railway 2-6-2T No. E190 Lyd in 2010. It hasn’t stopped there, for it is building an updated and revised replica of long-scrapped Avonside 0-4-4-0T James Spooner.
Other organisations and private individuals have also got in on the act, as building new is a viable option for almost every railway, regardless of size. Furthermore, owing to their idiosyncratic nature, narrow gauge railways are more reliant than their standard gauge counterparts upon recreating their specific history, as their locomotives and rolling stock were more often than not unique and thus a fundamental part of their image and appeal. Therefore, many railways feel it is vital to recreate that.
It is for that reason that many of the projects listed in our narrow gauge newbuild health check have been launched, and there is no doubting that most – if not all – will be completed within a few years.
Compare those prospects to those of their standard gauge counterparts. A handful of those projects will come on stream in the next few years, but as we demonstrated in SR492 (and in previous issues), the majority simply aren’t raising enough money to keep pace with their stated aspirations.
Narrow gauge projects, on the other hand, don’t have that problem. Nearly all of them are funded internally, and thus do not face the same scale of challenges as their standard gauge counterparts. But with so many schemes active right now, it is worth exploring them in some detail.