FFESTINIOG RAILWAY DOUBLE FAIRLIE 0-4-4-0T No. 8 JAMES SPOONER
Group: Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways
Project formed: 2016 Project cost: N/A
Raised to date: N/A Estimated completion date: 2020 Location: Ffestiniog Railway
While the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust has a good pedigree of completing new-build locomotives, it’s nothing compared to Boston Lodge. The Ffestiniog Railway’s workshop is building its fifth preservation-era locomotive (the extensive rebuild of ‘Large England’ Welsh Pony notwithstanding – see panel): a replica of 1872-built Avonside double Fairlie No. 8 James Spooner. Not only will the 0-4-4-0T be the first double engine to have been built since 1992’s David Lloyd George, but it is significant in that it will be utilising major components from its spiritual ancestor, Earl of Merioneth – Britain’s first full-size new-build locomotive, and the first to be withdrawn.
With that engine requiring a new boiler, frame cradle, smokeboxes, chimneys and water tanks before it can steam again, it was decided to permanently retire the ‘Earl’ on its original 1979-built power bogies and replace it with a new locomotive using its 1986-built power bogies.
Launched in spring 2016, the new James Spooner is slated for completion in 2020 for the 150th anniversary of the Little Wonder trials of 1870, and will be outshopped in an approximation of the original’s as-built guise, complete with boiler-mounted bells, stovepipe chimneys, original square sandboxes and – most distinctively – a semi-open cab roof, albeit with removable roof panels to protect crews during winter months. The major deviation from the original design will be to replace the original Avonside-pattern parallel boiler with the FR’s own ‘wagon top’ design, based on that first utilised on David Lloyd George but of a hybrid welded/ riveted construction. In this guise, it will closely resemble the original James Spooner’s immediate successor, Merddin Emrys, as it was initially turned out in 1879.
Progress in the last three years has been rapid; the throatplates had been delivered before the project was formally announced. The boiler cradle was erected in March this year and fitted to the power bogies soon after, while construction of the double boiler and firebox is well advanced at the premises of contractor Powys Steel Fabrications in the Tanat Valley.
Based on the FR’s track record, and the present rate of progress, you’d be brave to bet against James Spooner achieving its target steaming date in 2020.