An icon waiting in the wings
BACK after 21 years – with A2 Pacific No. 60532 Blue Peter included in the new Saphos Tours brochure thanks to its potential return to steam later in 2023, attention is again focusing on the history of this preservation icon which is once more set take the sector by storm.
The A2 Pacifics were four subclasses. Each variation had double chimneys, 6ft 2in driving wheels and three cylinders with divided drive, whereby the inside cylinder drove the front driving wheels and the outside cylinders the centre drivers.
The class was introduced between 1943 and 1948 and had two designers, Edward Thompson and Arthur Peppercorn. The majority were built by the LNER immediately before nationalisation took place in 1948.
➜A2/2 class: BR Nos. 60501 to 60506 (LNER 501-6), power classification 7MT, were designed by Thompson, who became Chief Mechanical Engineer of the LNER after Sir Nigel Gresley’s death in 1941. These were not new locomotives but rebuilds produced between 1943 and 1944 using as many parts as possible from Gresley’s six P2 class 4-8-2s. Thompson wanted a standardised, non-streamlined powerful mixed traffic locomotive, but during the war, new builds would not have been authorised. The A2/2s were the only ones built without smoke deflectors. All others either started with the small wing type but were changed to the larger ones later.
➜A2/1: BR Nos. 60507-60510, 6MT. Again, these were Thompsondesigned and LNER-built at Darlington in 1944 to 1945.
➜A2/3: BR Nos. 60500, 6051160524, 7P, originally Thompsondesigned and LNER-built at Doncaster in 1946 and 1947. During this time, design amendments were made by Arthur Peppercorn, who succeeded Thompson in 1946, becoming the last Chief Mechanical Engineer of the LNER prior to nationalisation.
➜A2 BR Nos. 60525-60539, 7MT. In 1946 and without Thompson’s authorisation, draughtsman Peppercorn started to modify the A2/3s design. He continued between 1946 and 1947 in preparation for the final batch of this class. The first Peppercorn A2 was completed in 1948 – so is it an LNER or BR locomotive?
No. 60532 Blue Peter was outshopped from Doncaster works on March 25, 1948, in LNER apple green livery with British Railways on the tender. It is the sole survivor of this attractive class and is now under extensive overhaul inside the LNWR Heritage works at Crewe.
As was typical of the LNER, the tradition of naming locos after racehorses continued. The horse Blue Peter was known for its speed; in 1939, it won the Derby and the 2000 Guineas, earning £32,000 for owner Harry Primrose, the sixth Earl of Rosebery. In its day, this would have been enough to buy three Doncaster Pacifics!
Working life
The A2s were designed to take over on postwar top link passenger expresses and were allocated to the East Coast Main Line. Shedded from New England in Peterborough to Haymarket in Edinburgh, they could be seen as far south as King’s Cross.
They were best known for the Edinburgh to Aberdeen route, on which six started working in 1949. Although considered ideal for this line with its gradients and curves, there were conflicting reports on performance. One notable A2 performance took place in 1961 on the legendary Stoke Bank in Lincolnshire, when 101mph was achieved by No. 60526 Sugar Palm.
Their final years were spent on the Aberdeen route, with withdrawals starting in 1962. The last of the class, Nos. 60528 Tudor Minstrel, 60530 Sayajirao and 60532 Blue Peter, retired in June 1966.
Allocated to Dundee, No. 60532 was the last Peppercorn Pacific to be overhauled at Darlington Works and for this reason was used on several railtours venturing to Holyhead and Exeter St David’s. Its final railtour took place in October 1966, running over the Waverley Route and Beattock on the West Coast Main Line.
It was withdrawn from service on December 31, 1966, and put into storage, but at this time there was no mention of it being preserved. The rest were scrapped.
Blue Peter was not the first choice for enthusiast saviour Geoff Drury, because he bought LNER A4
No. 60019 Bittern in 1966. His attempt to buy an A1 failed after they were cut up and instead, he was offered No. 60532 in 1968, saving the last of this class.
Both locomotives moved to Dinting Railway Centre, near Glossop, which opened in 1968 and closed in 1990. They were steamed infrequently.
The BBC children’s programme Blue Peter became involved in
campaigning for the locomotive’s restoration, featuring it several times over the years.
Restoration took place on three sites – York, Leeds, and its birthplace of Doncaster Works – where it was repainted into LNER apple green livery as No. 532.
About 60,000 people and countless television viewers witnessed its renaming by Blue Peter presenters at the works open day in 1971.
In an unusual move in the early to mid-1970s, both locomotives were stored at Walton Colliery, Wakefield, for a time. Little can be found about this period or what happened to them until in 1987, when the Drury family placed the A2 on long-term loan to the North Eastern Locomotive Preservation Group.
No. 60532 moved to Imperial Chemical Industries works at Wilton, Teesside, to be fully restored in 1991 for main line running, while No. 60019 was cosmetically restored as 2509 Silver Link for display at the Stephenson Railway Museum in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Returning home
Blue Peter made its welcome return in BR livery running northbound over the Settle to Carlisle line on March 3, 1992, returning south the following week. Regrettably it had a diesel on the rear.
In 1994, it returned to its home stomping ground at Aberdeen, hauling a Scottish Railway Preservation Society tour from Stirling via Perth.
That same year on October 1, with the first steam run from Edinburgh to York, it suffered a catastrophic wheelslip.
After an initial wheelslip departing Durham, the boiler primed and water got into the regulator valve, jamming it fully open.
That mishap created a more serious wheelslip which destroyed some of the motion, causing extensive damage.
The driver was injured while attempting to close the regulator.
No. 60532 was moved to Thornaby for repairs, which took 18 months to carry out. It then moved to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway for running in before returning to the main line in 1996.
Its television programme namesake became involved again for its 40th anniversary edition in 1998, when the locomotive ran from Edinburgh to London.
Its main line certificate expired in September 2001, and it was based on the NYMR, working until the end of 2002 when its boiler certificate expired.
It was afterwards displayed at the Darlington Railway Centre and Museum, now known as Head of Steam, and in 2007 it went into storage at Chesterfield before moving to Barrow Hill roundhouse, where it was repainted into apple green livery once again.
During this time, NELPG hoped to raise £600,000 for its restoration, but the Drury family sold it to Jeremy Hosking in 2014.
Now under the ownership of the Royal Scot Locomotive and General Trust, Blue Peter is inside LNWRH’s workshop at Crewe under overhaul. It did make another appearance on the television programme, which covered its movement from Barrow Hill to Crewe.
The overhaul is progressing well. The boiler is at an advanced stage, a new middle cylinder block cast by H Downs Foundry of Huddersfield is in position, and the frames realigned. A new ashpan has been manufactured and is awaiting fitting, and the one-piece pistons are on site ready for machining.
To see an A2 once again on the main line, especially with the Saphos Trains rake of red and cream carriages, is all set to be one of the big highlights of 2023, towards the end of the year.