An engine that helped to demolish some of the Bluebell – and rebuild it
How one of the Bluebell’s first engines helped to rip up part of the line and, in later years, put some of it back.
“P reserved engines? I haven’t authorised any engines to be preserved. Scrap them.”
With those reputed dispassionate words, newly appointed London Midland & Scottish Railway chief mechanical engineer William Stanier sealed the fate of four priceless locomotives.
With commendable foresight, five of what would now be National Collection treasures had been squirrelled away for preservation in the paintshop at Derby Works. Most were Midland Railway veterans from two of the company’s most famous designers, namely Kirtley 0-6-0 No. 421 and 2-4-0 No. 156A, and Johnson ‘Spinner’ 4-2-2 No. 673 and 0-4-4T No. 6. They could have made a fine display for an LMS answer to the LNER’s museum at York – then only a modest affair, but which laid some of the foundations for today’s National Railway Museum.
But when Stanier arrived from the GWR in 1932, with a brief to sort out the factionalised locomotive department of the LMS, he began with this clear sign to Derby that there would be no room in his new regime for the old ways. Touring the works, and finding these engines, as he saw it, taking up valuable space, he ordered them sent to the melting pot. One wonders if he’d have cared whether any of his own ‘Duchesses’, ‘Black Fives’ and ‘8Fs’ were saved for posterity…
Thankfully, someone at Derby defied the new boss by rescuing the Johnson ‘Single’, while another 2-4-0, No. 158A, was subsequently put aside for preservation – but as well as the other three Midland machines, Stanier’s decision left us without something else valuable, beautiful and of some historical significance. A North London Railway 4-4-0 tank engine. This engine, No. 6445, had been the last survivor of a type that had formed the staple passenger motive power on this compact system serving London’s docks and northern suburbs; some (like this one) with outside cylinders elegantly flared into the smokebox, others with inside cylinders; all graceful examples of an unusual tank engine wheel arrangement that seemed to find favour mainly in the capital or north of the border.
Stanier’s ruthless streak meant that only a humdrum freight and shunting engine would survive to represent this small but fascinating company in preservation.
REACHING FOR THE PEAK
Even then, it was only through chance. This humble shunter and its classmates would probably themselves have been swept away in the wholesale cull of pre-Grouping locomotives that Stanier’s restocking of the LMS set in motion – had it not been for the Cromford & High Peak Railway.
With its astonishing gradients of up to 1-in-14, and viciously tight curves, this charismatic freight-only line climbing into the wilds of the Peak District demanded a certain character of engine. The North London Railway 0-6-0Ts fitted the bill perfectly.
Though known to many as the ‘75 Class’ after the number of the first example, this is an appellation that has been bestowed on them by enthusiasts; the NLR officially referred to them only as ‘Goods Engines’. John C. Park, the NLR’s locomotive superintendent
Stanier’s ruthless streak meant that only a humdrum freight and shunting engine would survive to represent this company
from 1873 to 1893, designed them for shunting the Poplar and West India docks that had been the railway’s original raison d’être (see panel). The requirements for a dock shunter – a short-wheelbase engine, able to negotiate restrictive curves but packing plenty of tractive effort – were precisely those of the C&HPR.
Having already long outlived the NLR, the surviving ‘Goods Engines’ began relocating from the capital to Derbyshire in 1931. Our engine, by then LMS No. 27505 (see panel) arrived at its new home of Rowsley around 1935, and would stay there, successfully conquering the C&HPR’s arduous inclines and flange-shrieking curves, for the next quarter of a century.
In 1956, as the NLR tanks started to show their age, a challenger appeared in the form of an LNER ‘J94’ 0-6-0ST – though it was three more years before the War Department shunters were allocated to the High Peak line, and our ‘Goods Engine’ – by now BR No. 58850 – was the last to bid farewell to the scenic route, in 1960.
SALVATION AT DERBY
It was sent to Derby Works, but unlike its 4-4-0T stablemate, it wasn’t destined for scrapping. As 1961 began, it was still sitting amid the rows of engines outside the Midland mecca, held back from the torch… but why? Could it be that someone at Derby wanted to atone for Stanier’s sins of nearly 30 years before?
We asked this of the Bluebell, but at this distance in time, nobody can confirm it either way. Says Roger Price, the line’s archivist: “Unfortunately, those who were around at the time in the Bluebell Society management have all passed on, the last being Klaus Marx, my predecessor, who died recently in a nursing home.
“I have looked through all the publications and newsletters of the period, but can find little background information on the reason for the retention of the engine at Derby, other than it being the last example from the North London Railway and also something of a celebrity in the last days of the Cromford & High Peak Railway.
“At that time, the Bluebell was looking to buy engines and had the assistance of John Scholes [BR’s Curator of Historical Relics], who was the keeper of the museum at Clapham, and it may have been through his auspices that it was offered. Captain Peter Manisty (who went on to become the chairman of the Association of Railway Preservation Societies) was also deeply involved with the Bluebell at that time. A Bluebell Railway Preservation Society members’ newsletter for March 1961 quotes a combined price of £1,950 for the North London tank and the Adams ‘Radial’!
“The North London tank was examined at Derby on January 4 1961 and members were advised on the outcome at a meeting on January 6. Negotiations continued into the summer and resulted in the agreement for it to be overhauled at Derby, for which we have the copy of the letter outlining the work involved. It is not clear who paid for it.”
Whoever paid for it got a good deal. Two prices – £750 and £890 – appear on different pages of the Bluebell’s website, but Roger was unable to confirm which is correct in time for this issue. The latter figure aligns closely with the £980 quoted to the L&Y Saddletanks Fund for Aspinall 0-6-0ST No. 11305 three years later (SR502), both being around £20,000 in today’s money – but for the Bluebell, a general repair to No. 58850 was thrown in, which included the fitting of a fully overhauled boiler, and restoration to LNWR livery as No. 2650. The works staff, according to one of the Bluebell web pages, did all this in their spare time.
Here again, one can’t help but wonder; with some honourable exceptions, BR wasn’t usually this accommodating when it came to selling engines for preservation. Were the staff at Derby still smarting over the loss of the 4-4-0T and keen to make amends?
DEMOLITION DERBY
Roger continues: “Once completed, she was moved as an out-of-gauge load in freight trains to Willesden (I have been unable to find details of these) and on March 28 1962 it was in the consist of the 2.30am goods from Willesden to Three Bridges.
“A fitter from Stewarts Lane was deputed to travel with
it and keep the axleboxes well lubricated. The signal box register at Horsted Keynes records it arriving at 11.03am on a special 9.48am working from Three Bridges [via the Ardingly branch] together with a wagon of spares. It would have been collected from Horsted Keynes by a Bluebell engine, but I have not seen any photographs of these movements. She entered service on the Bluebell soon after arrival.”
Just two years later came one of the ‘highlights’ of No. 2650’s new preservation career… if you can call it that. This locomotive’s biggest claim to fame since it arrived at the Bluebell is, arguably, that it helped to partially demolish the line!
Mind you, for a railway that for so long boasted ‘100% steam’ status, there was a certain satisfaction in how this came about. The contractors engaged to rip up the Ardingly branch and the line from Horsted Keynes to East Grinstead, the Demolition & Construction Co. of Croydon, started the job with a Ruston & Hornsby diesel – but in order to provide both the haulage and brake power needed on the 1-in-75 gradients, the firm had to hire the NLR tank, and LBSCR ‘E4’ 0-6-2T Birch Grove, from the Bluebell.
The story goes that an Irish demolition worker, on seeing one of the vintage locomotives arriving, exclaimed: “Good God, that engine ought to be in a museum,” to which his foreman replied: “It already is!”
On July 15 1964, the first day of No. 2650’s initial three-week stint, the Ruston’s shortcomings were highlighted in spectacular fashion, when it ran away on the downhill gradient from Sharpthorne Tunnel, and its driver tried to stop it by throwing it into reverse, wrecking the gearbox in the process.
Although the Bluebell had been able to lease its initial Sheffield Park-Horsted Keynes section, by 1964 BR insisted on outright purchase of the East Grinstead or Ardingly lines, which it was unable to afford – leaving it with no connection to the main line. This was ironically underlined when the heartbreaking task of demolition was finished in March 1965 – for the NLR tank was stranded at East Grinstead, and had to go home by road.
MAKING UP FOR LOST TRACK
The chunky little dock shunter would get the chance to atone for its sins, though. Following its last major overhaul, and having been officially relaunched back into traffic by Michael Palin in 1984, it was used on the engineers’ trains to begin re-laying the track northwards from Horsted Keynes towards East Grinstead. This probably makes it unique in preservation as an engine that helped to both dismantle and rebuild its home line.
It made one foray even further north in 1990 when it visited Tyseley for an open day, but last steamed three years later when its boiler certificate expired. Since then, it has been relegated to static exhibit status, but its life still hasn’t been entirely without intrigue.
Between 1999 and 2005, it returned to its former spiritual home county of Derbyshire for display in Barrow Hill Roundhouse, and from May 6 of the latter year, it spent a short period at Wirksworth on the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway – just a stone’s throw from the trackbed of the Cromford & High Peak line.
We asked Chris Hunford – chairman and locomotive director of the Bluebell Railway plc – if the line would consider a further such loan to another railway, perhaps on a ‘restore and run’ basis, or even to part with it altogether?
Chris replied that the engine will always be considered
“part of the family silver, given its history and that it was a core part of the locomotive fleet in decades gone past. We would consider a loan to another railway for display purposes, but ownership would always be retained by the Bluebell Railway.”
MISSING OUT
The North London tank very nearly got the chance to play a further part in the rebuilding of the line to East Grinstead in the early 21st century. On October 22 2005, it returned from Wirksworth to Sheffield Park, not long after the Bluebell had begun dismantling the biggest obstacle standing between it and East Grinstead – excavating around 100,000 tons of domestic waste from Imberhorne Cutting.
From June 2005, trains began to take the spoil away southwards to be dumped on the Bluebell’s other dismantled line – rebuilding the embankment of the Ardingly branch where Sheriff Mill Viaduct had been demolished in 1969 – initially worked by Ivatt ‘2MT’ 2-6-2T No. 41312, on hire from the Mid-Hants Railway.
It would have been very appropriate had the North London tank been returned to steam to lend a hand, but it wasn’t to be. Chris explains that the planned overhaul never went ahead because “other more cost-effective locomotive overhauls took place, meaning the North London tank fell down the list.”
It thus remained a static exhibit, latterly standing forlornly exposed to the elements in the sidings at Horsted Keynes station – though thankfully, during 2019, the young members of the Bluebell’s ‘9F Club’ began giving it some cosmetic attention. In the short term, confirms Chris, it will remain here, “pending further under-cover storage for out-of-service locos.”
But since that previous overhaul plan was put forward, much of the work for engines such as this at the Bluebell – not least the famous ‘Monday shunt’, the last regular steam-operated shunting turn in Britain and indeed most of Europe – has been taken by diesel shunters.
With the Bulleid Society raising funds to overhaul the former ‘Monday shunt’ stalwart – LSWR ‘B4’ 0-4-0T Normandy – will the North London tank, realistically, ever be overhauled again?
Says Chris: “Yes, I think it will, but it falls into the longer term bracket now. The boiler is possibly condemned, but that is subject to a thorough assessment when lifted from the frames.”
A full mechanical overhaul is also needed, he adds, because – remarkable though it may seem – the engine has never even been lifted off its wheels in preservation. Whatever the cost of that overhaul at Derby in 1961, the Bluebell certainly got their money’s worth out of it!
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
As the Bluebell’s steel railhead was stretching back northwards in the 1980s and early 1990s, advancing ever closer to the seeming ‘Mission Impossible’ of Imberhorne Cutting, it was only fitting that the NLR tank should have done its bit to reverse the destruction that it helped to wreak in the 1960s.
It was also very fitting that, before its last boiler ticket ran out, the locomotive made it back through Sharpthorne Tunnel to the site of the demolished West Hoathly station in early 1992. Almost 30 years earlier, this derelict station had provided temporary office and messroom accommodation for the demolition gang, and the stabling point for the ‘Goods Engine’ and ‘E4’ during their hire periods, coal piled high on the platform to keep them fed through their stints away from home.
But there is still one piece of unfinished business for No. 2650. After West Hoathly, it could play no further part in the resurrection of the line, nor in the triumphant return of steam to the great goal of East Grinstead. The North London tank has not been back here since 1965, when it sat in a siding forlornly facing across Imberhorne Viaduct towards the empty trackbed that it had just helped to raze; then to leave ignominiously hauled onto the back of a low-loader, seemingly then without a hope of ever returning.
And only when it does, perhaps along with its demolition workmate Birch Grove, will that chapter of Bluebell history finally be truly closed.