Shannon’s heroes
Re Paul Chancellor’s article [SR10] on the preservation of the Wantage Tramway locomotive No. 5 (Shannon) by the Great Western Railway, the part played by The Times should not be overlooked.
On April 8 1946, it published a letter from travel author R.L.P. Jowitt, which began: “A historic locomotive, until recently the oldest English engine on active service, is due to be scrapped in the immediate future.”
Jowitt’s letter concluded: “Though the old engine may be only a local joke now, in a few years not only Wantage but all those interested in British railways will regret that it was allowed to be destroyed.”
The same day, The Times took up the case of Wantage Tramway No. 5 in a leader headed ‘After Life’s Fitful Fever’: All the world loves an engine, and so there will be much sympathy with a correspondent who pleads today for a nonagenarian locomotive in danger of the scrap-heap. An almshouse has been sought, but the museums are full, and it is suggested that even as the comparatively juvenile Invicta lives tranquilly at Canterbury, so a home should be found for it at Wantage, where its last working years were spent.
All engines are beautiful, and this particular veteran has ‘a very tall funnel and a dome resembling a tea urn’. It may have an antique mien for funnels grown atrophied and the youth of today, worshipping at strange shrines, prefer an engine with the smoke coming out of a mere hole as from the crater of a volcano. Those who are older, however, will cling faithfully to the funnel, and the more funnel the better.
The campaign was joined by letters written by other familiar names from the railway enthusiast fraternity and T.W. Pinnock, chairman of the Society of Model and Experimental Engineers, added his voice on April 18: Although in the eyes of those accustomed to locomotives of the present day this ‘old timer’ may seem antiquated and indeed ludicrous, it is one of the few survivors of an age when the features of modern locomotives were quite literally being hammered out.
The happy ending was announced in a second letter from R.L.P. Jowitt on May 6 1946: I am very pleased to be able to inform you that the old Wantage steam tramway locomotive illustrated in your issue of April 8 has been acquired by the Great Western Railway for permanent preservation.
I do not know what plans the railway may have, but suggest that the engine should be on permanent exhibition at Paddington Station.
When the Great Western Society collected the Wantage Tramway locomotive from storage at the Wantage Research Laboratory on January 18 1969, I recall thoroughly enjoying the irony of this antiquity being drawn through the gates of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, engaged in the “white heat of technological change” beloved of Harold Wilson, prime minister at the time.