Overhaul of Sir Lamiel recalled at East London’s Stratford – decades after the works closed to steam
WHILE the overhaul of preserved King Arthur No. 30777 Sir Lamiel by the 5305 Locomotive Association continues apace at the Great Central Railway in Loughborough, retired railwayman Arthur Nugent has unveiled photographs he took of work being carried out on the locomotive at Stratford in 1986 – almost 25 years after the East London depot’s official closure to steam.
The Southern Railway 4-6-0 became part of the National Collection after withdrawal from Basingstoke (70D)
King of the track: King Arthur 4-6-0 No. 30777 Sir Lamiel negotiates Factory Junction in south-west London on August 23, 1958, with a troop special from Peterborough to Shorncliffe Barracks near Folkestone. In the right background is the iconic Battersea Power Station, while behind the former Southern Railway 4-6-0
– which is seemingly devoid of its nameplates – is a motley collection of carriages. Battersea was at the time a hive of railway activity, as in addition to its network of railway lines, it was the location of Nine Elms and Stewarts Lane engine sheds, respectively coded 70A and 73A. No. 30777 was saved for preservation as part of the National Collection in 1961, and 25 years later became the last steam locomotive to be repaired at Stratford Works in east London. RC RILEY/TRANSPORT TREASURY in October 1961, and its visit to Stratford in September 1986 was the third time the depot had played host to the King Arthur since it had been taken out of service.
Host
The first was in the early 1960s, when the old carriage washshop was used to store several locomotives set aside for the National Collection – including Sir Lamiel, which left during 1967.
However, on June 25, 1978, it called in for the second time, when on transfer from Preston Park, Brighton to Humberside.
Still carrying its BR number 30777, the 4-6-0 laid overnight at Stratford before being hauled the following day to Hull Dairycoates shed in tandem with withdrawn Bo-Bo electric No. 71001 (formerly E5001), which had also been earmarked for the National Collection.
The pair were noted by enthusiasts at Cambridge on their way north behind Class 31 No. 31322 (D5857), and later at Lincoln behind another Class 31, No. 31186 (D5609).
Writing in the GER Society’s Great Eastern Journal, Arthur, who became a fitter in the Stratford diesel repair shop in 1966, said the second visit of Sir Lamiel to the depot, which had officially closed to steam in September 1962, was unexpected. The locomotive’s third visit, however, was not.
Finale
“On September 12, 1986, the workshop supervisor told me to be at the country end of the shop with my camera to see the arrival of our next job,” he said. That job was on the King Arthur, making it the last steam locomotive repair at the works, 146 years after the NER had built a locomotive shed on
the site and 140 years after Eastern Counties Railway – of which the NER was by then a part – opened an erecting shop.
Arthur’s series of photographs show Sir Lamiel inside the diesel repair shop, including one of it having been lifted by an overhead gantry crane to enable its leading coupled wheels and bogie to be rolled out, with Class 47 No. 47528 (D1111) on the adjacent road.
There are also images outside, one featuring the uncoupled tender in Southern livery at No. 777, another of the locomotive awaiting its steam test with the Freightliner terminal in the background, and a third of the 4-6-0 looking splendid in olive green as No. 777 moving around the yard during steam testing on December 8, almost three months after it had arrived at Stratford.
While No. 777 was the last steam engine to be repaired at Stratford, the last locomotive to be overhauled there was Class 31 No. 31165, which entered the works in early 1991, four years after the King Arthur.
To mark it being the final one, the A1A-A1A was restored by the works to its original number D5583 and named Stratford Major Depot, and at a ceremony on March 26 that year, five days before closure, its new identity was unveiled by former repair shop manager Alf Buffett.
Career
Arthur, who is 84 and lives in Chelmsford, began his railway career in 1953 as an apprentice at Camden (1B), and on the shed’s closure in 1966 transferred to the diesel repair shop at Stratford, initially as a fitter and subsequently as chargehand and then stores controller.
He retired in 1991, six months after Stratford’s closure.