Ten-year service on track for Black Five engine
THEY ARE one of the most versatile steam engines to have graced the track. Nicknamed Black Fives, they once dominated the railways, with 842 of them built over a 17-year period until 1951.
These locomotives may have dwindled in numbers, with just 18 of them preserved, but such is the public’s continued affection for the steam age that there is rarely a summer’s day when a Black Five is not put to work on the tracks.
The Black Five 44806 was built in Derby in 1944 and came into service on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway between Pickering and Whitby in the summer of 2016.
At the start of the new year the engine will be pulled from the tracks for a thorough inspection of every single component part in what amounts to a comprehensive service, one that it is scheduled to undergo as a matter of routine every 10 years.
During its heyday, this particular locomotive operated out of many sheds on the Midland route, most notably at Lostock Hall, near Preston, until it was withdrawn in 1968.
In preservation, for a while it carried the name Magpie, the ITV children’s programme of the same name having arranged for a locomotive to be named in a competition with the BBC’s Blue Peter.
It arrived in the North York Moors in 2013 after a stint on the Llangollen Railway in north-east Wales and upon its relocation, it underwent extensive work at Grosmont.
Until New Year’s Day, the 44806 will continue to take special excursions to Whitby.