MODERN HISTORY
How two engines survived in strange circumstances. By PAUL CHANCELLOR
‘ Saved for preservation’ has always been a welcome phrase, but it can mean a multitude of things. In the world of steam, it can mean anything from being left to rot, awaiting labour and funds, to an active life on the main line.
Turn back the clock the best part of a century, and the term meant that, at best, a locomotive would be kept on static display in a museum. Fortunately for UK enthusiasts, it rarely meant the quite common practice that evolved elsewhere in the world, of what came to be called ‘stuffed and mounted’. This would – and often still does – mean on a plinth, exposed to the elements, outside some railway establishment.
However, the GWR did indulge in the practice in a small way as early as around 1927. In the run-up to the centenary of the Rainhill Trials, there was a surge in interest in old locomotives, so the company decided to display the broad gauge 0-4-0VBT Tiny.
It was built for the South Devon Railway in 1868, by Sara & Co. and delivered to the Sutton Docks branch, where it replaced a horse on shunting duties.
In 1883, Tiny was transferred to the GWR’s Newton Abbot shed, where it became part of the hydrostatic test stand, remaining there until 1927 when the GWR decided to put it on display at the station, becoming the last remaining original broad gauge engine in Britain.
It remained fenced off on a platform there for the best part of 60 years before moving for continued, but better protected, display at the South Devon Railway. A proposal to deaccession it by the National Railway Museum in 2017 was, fortunately, rebutted.
Its age, size and gauge make it an unlikely candidate to steam again, but should it ever visit the recreated Brunel baulk road at Didcot, it could meet the second of the GWR’s ‘plinthed’ engines, Wantage Tramway No. 5.
This locomotive, also known as Shannon, had an interesting life, being built nine years before Tiny in 1857 by George England & Co. for the Sandy & Potton Railway. It stayed just five years before being sold to the LNWR, after which it underwent trails on the Cromford & High Peak line, carrying the number 1104. The trials were, apparently, not successful as it was rapidly moved to Crewe Works for shunting duties.
Ten years later it was renumbered 1863 and named Shannon but, in 1878, it was sold again, this time to the Wantage Tramway where it became their No. 5 and unofficially known as ‘Jane’. It remained there until closure of the line in 1946, during which time it paid at least three visits to Swindon Works for overhaul and was purchased by the GWR upon closure of the line.
It was actually just into the nationalised era, in 1948, that the engine, with its name Shannon restored, was put on display in a compound at Wantage Road where it stayed until the station closed in 1965.
Now in the hands of the National Collection, Shannon’s next home was with the Atomic Energy Commission at Grove, for storage, but that was short-lived as its presence there had come to the attention of the Great Western Society which, in 1969, had it moved to Didcot.
Steaming soon followed and it starred at the Stockton & Darlington celebrations in 1975. It was subsequently retired to permanent static display