UK’s newest steam locomotive for November Southwold debut
THE Southwold Railway Trust's newbuild replica of the legendary 3ft gauge line's original Sharp Stewart 2-4-0T No. 3 Blyth was on course for delivery by manufacturer North Bay Railway Engineering Services of Darlington in mid-November.
The delivery will sadly miss the trust's planned October 30/31 open weekend at its Steamworks site in Blyth Road. However, once on site, it will be immiedately steamed on the trust's 80-yard demonstration track.
Trust chairman John Bennett said: “It is a beautiful piece of art as much as it is a fine piece of engineering.
“David Humphreys and his NBRES team have captured that blend of visual and engineering quality that once characterised the manufacturing output of Victorian Britain.”
The original Blyth, works number 2850 of 1879, was scrapped as part of the war effort in 1941, 12 years after the Suffolk railway closed.
Blyth will be the second new locomotive to be steamed by NBRES inside two months.
On October 4, Big Dave, the firm's third replica Bagnall Sipat class 0-4-0ST was successfully steam tested. It is based on an original built in 1909 for the Sipat Water Works in India and built for Scotland's Shed47 Railway Restoration Group at Lathalmond Railway Museum to the north of Dunfermline on a shared site with the Scottish Vintage Bus Museum.
The firm's previous Sipats are Georgina, which ran on the North Bay Railway in Scarborough, and Otter, which was sold to the Groudle Glen Railway. A fourth is now being built for a private enthusiast, making it a rare example of modern-day batch building of steam locomotives.