THE LAST CHANCE FOR 7027?
It was the 23rd of more than 200 engines to escape Barry scrapyard, but fortune has dealt Thornbury Castle a series of unfortunate hands. That is until now, as NICK BRODRICK learns from the man who is now responsible for its long overdue return to steam.
‘Thornbury’s’ best chance so far
Have you ever bought a second-hand Airfix kit, only to find on opening the box that half the pieces are missing? That’s the awkward situation that Craig Stinchcombe now faces. But his challenge is rather more complex; one that a quick visit to a model shop and some squeezy glue won’t solve. That’s because his kit of random parts is a 1:1 scale 1949-built Collett ‘Castle’ 4-6-0.
Thornbury Castle – the steel and copper embodiment of a Cinderella locomotive, one that has never put down its roots in private ownership. An engine we’ve often doubted will ever be more than a sorry wreck ever again, and not without some justification.
46-year-old Craig has seen plenty in his three decades as a steam locomotive engineer, but the restoration of Thornbury Castle ranks as the most daunting – to casual observers at least.
For what currently greets visitors and volunteers to the shed yard at Loughborough on the Great Central Railway is a veritable husk of a once-proud locomotive.
But now, finally, it appears that the fairytale ending that has so far eluded No. 7027 is being written.
‘CASTLE’ CONFIDENCE
It would have been natural to react to ‘Thornbury’s’ latest move in its 48-year game of snakes and ladders with some scepticism. Saved for restoration by Birmingham Railway Museum, then sold to Pete Waterman and latterly Jonathan Jones-Pratt, their combined ambitions for the Swindon hulk all came to nothing.
‘Thornbury’ started its preservation life as a prime candidate for the main line, but a change of priorities at Tyseley saw it fall behind classmates Defiant and Earl of Mount Edgcumbe. So much that it became a parts donor and items such as coupling rods, stamped 7027, now reside on No. 5043. Subsequent private ownership might have accomplished little, but did at least save the engine from further significant plundering of parts.
‘Thornbury’s’ fresh purchase by an anonymous, wealthy
benefactor for the Great Central Railway now really ought to be fourth time lucky for this nomadic engine. Indeed, it might just have come in the nick of time for its future status as a preserved ‘Castle’, after Steam Railway alerted potential suitors in November (SR499).
“We did hear a rumour that someone wanted to buy it and turn it into a ‘Star’, but what’s the point?”, asks Craig. “You’d get a lot more encouragement trying to keep it as it is, rather than turning it into something it isn’t. I’m glad it’s going to be restored as it is.”
And though ‘Thornbury’ is clearly a major undertaking, it is a prospect that holds no fear for Craig and his Loughborough workshop team.
“I’m confident. Yeah, I’ll do it. The enthusiasm is there, which is more important than money,” he tells SR.
“It’s a bit of an iconic engine, isn’t it? It’s been moved from place to place, and robbed and pillaged, and now someone wants to do something with it and get it steaming again.
“Nowadays, we’re doing overhauls on a regular basis, but you don’t do restorations anymore because there aren’t so many around now to do, so it is nice for the blokes to have something to restore.
“It’s a good team-building exercise to turn it around from the rusting hulk that it is at the moment into something that’s quite nice. Well, more than quite nice.”
How much, at this early stage, does he know about the state of the engine which, at first glance, is little more than wheels, frame, cylinders and boiler?
“Not a lot really!” he quips, “but it’s not going to be cheap! There is a lot of work to do; I know it doesn’t have a lot of bits with it.
“But in terms of what it does have, there are two outside con-rods, one middle crosshead, the inside valve and steam chest covers and two outside cylinder covers, slide bars, a pair of radius rods, all bar one of the springs, the brake rigging for the tender, but not for the engine, and that’s about it.”
“We’ve got a container with stuff in it and there’s not even half of what you would want.
“There’s no inside or outside motion, coupling rods, valves, rocker shafts for the valves, pistons, brake cylinder, axlebox underkeeps, expansion links, or vacuum pump. It really is quite bare. I’ve not worked on anything before that’s been robbed this much.”
It is here that SR readers can play their part. Not for donations, but bits.
“I’m looking at the harder things to get hold of. Just a simple thing: the safety valve bonnet. Where am I going to get that? They’re not easy to make. I’ve found someone who is willing to give it a go, but I’m hoping that a reader will say: ‘oh, I have one of those in my garden!’.”
Early rummaging has already resulted in a brake valve casting and water gauge frame pedestal being brought
I’m confident. Yeah, I’ll do it. The enthusiasm is there, which is more important than money
from a research trip to Tyseley Locomotive Works, while Loughborough machinist Mick Carr has donated an original GWR whistle.
“Luckily, we have some time to look around, so we’re looking for anything that would fit a ‘Castle’ that might be lying around in someone’s garage.”
So, if anyone’s got any of those parts – a 14-feed lubricator, cab windows, or a reverser – lying around with nothing to do, then you know who to call.
JIGSAW PUZZLE
Happily, the carcass that arrived on a low-loader from the West Somerset Railway in January doesn’t actually look to be in bad nick.
“We went and had a look at it at Williton. Both Tom [Tighe] and I said ‘it’s do-able’.
“The engine tyres are very good, almost new size. The firebox is in excellent condition; everything’s sharp-edged. It hardly looks like it’s had a fire in it.”
Little wonder, perhaps, given that ‘Thornbury’ received a heavy general overhaul in 1960 and was condemned just three years later, with a light intermediate in between.
None of which takes away from the reality that, by the time it’s done, No. 7027 will represent one of the most difficult of the 150-plus Barry restorations.
“We’ve got our work cut out,” Craig accepts. “I’m not really doing anything with the engine for a year.
We might take it off its wheels and take the boiler off so that volunteers can sand the frames down, de-rust them and give them a nice coat of shiny black.
Already, helpers have set to work on smaller items, such as the bogie frame and bolsters, which are now primed and painted.
“My first plan of action is to try to make it into a jigsaw puzzle, get the bits in, then try to locate others,” he adds. “That means I can carry on with the ‘O4’ [No. 63601] and the ‘Brit’ [Oliver Cromwell], and once they’re done, I can concentrate on Thornbury Castle. It gives me a bit of time to source the parts and it’s something to get stuck into after them.
“We’ll do a lot of the assembly here. But if we want a quicker turnaround, then I have to look elsewhere and get things machined there, so that will mean getting in parts that are ready to fit, rather than machine them ourselves. We could do that, but it would mean being taken away from other jobs.”
Slow and methodical is already something of a theme for Loughborough’s newest allocation. Indeed, No. 7027 probably holds the record for the slowest run between Quorn and Loughborough, dragged by a Class 08 diesel shunter at what Craig describes as “just above walking pace”.
Those 2½ miles are the furthest that ‘Thornbury’ has moved on its own wheels for more than five decades. Symbolically, they represent the start of the long journey to its reincarnation.
With that thought, the first question that often passes enthusiasts’ lips of ‘when will it be finished?’ receives the noncommittal answer that you’d expect.
“I don’t really want to give a timescale at the minute, because you don’t know what you can get hold of.
It’s a hard thing to say. The owner is just happy that we want to do it.”
And the second question: livery?
There isn’t too much debate around that usually emotive and controversial subject, because, as a 1949, BR-era built locomotive, the options are pretty limited.
“It will be BR green, but I’m not sure whether I’ll do an early or late crest this time. We’ll see.”
What has so far eluded Craig during his initial research into the locomotive’s history are many pictures of the locomotive paired with a flat-sided Hawksworth example, as it will be again, post-restoration. That is despite the fact that No. 7027 appeared in this form for most of the first five of its 14 years in service.
The tender that ‘Thornbury’ now calls its own is something of a hybrid. It is a Collett underframe married to a 4,000-gallon Hawksworth tank, which was fabricated together with that of Earl of Mount Edgcumbe in the 1990s, representing one of the very few steps forward that No. 7027 has taken since leaving Barry.
The tender aside, ‘Thornbury’ will be very much an authentic, steam-era machine, not least because it won’t be air-braked or equipped with electronic gizmos for main line running. Instead, the single-chimney ‘Castle’ will permanently reside at the GCR.
Craig, who is also a fireman for West Coast Railways and who has shovelled coal into classmate No. 5029 Nunney Castle at 75mph, ponders: “I quite like the main line, but if you were to take it out there, then there’s an extra massive cost to get it up to that standard –
certainly, with all the electronic gear. And in the time that it takes to actually restore the engine, will we actually still be running on the main line at that point? It’s a hard thing to decide.”
FOR GCR, READ GWR
In any case, the GCR is a restored main line, albeit nominally restricted to 25mph. In those circumstances, there can be few more appropriate homes – and not just because of its unique double-track offering.
That’s because recent years have featured something of a Western Region uprising in this corner of Leicestershire, with ‘Modified Hall’ No. 6990 Witherslack Hall and ex-Cambrian ‘2MT’ No. 46521 now firm fixtures of the GCR roster, paired with a neat rake of chocolate and cream Mk 1s and a superb array of lower quadrant signals at Swithland.
Even in isolation, Thornbury Castle will undoubtedly be one of the future star turns on the 8¼-mile line, but that doesn’t mean that it will be a high days and holidays-only attraction.
“It will go in with the rest of them,” Craig affirms. “OK, it is big, but sometimes we have to run trains that are bigger than the ‘Standard 2s’ can take, so the bigger engines are ideal for that. But it will certainly be a special engine. For the First Class diners, having that sat at the front of the train, gleaming in brass and copper, will look superb.
“To be honest, I don’t think I’ve heard a negative comment about its arrival. There seems to be a lot of joy surrounding it.”
Perhaps the only disadvantage of keeping a ‘Castle’, something that Craig dryly describes as having
“a lot of rotating bits and a lot of corks” is that oil consumption will go up. That is, though, a tiny price to pay, especially in an age when there are fewer ‘glamour models’ left to restore.
“I don’t think anything like this will come along again. It’s circumstance, but there aren’t that many Barry scrapyard wrecks around now,” he surmises. “Apart from a few Bulleids and ‘Black Fives’, this is the last proper passenger engine.
“This is the last ‘Castle’ now. It has helped to get some of the others running, but now it’s ‘Thornbury’s’ turn. Now we’ve just got to find the missing pieces of the jigsaw…”