T3 award winners now plan to commence T9 overhaul
A ‘DREAM’ combination of LSWR T3 and T9 4-4-0 in regular service is the new aim of the award-winning 563 Locomotive Group at Swanage Railway Trust.
As reported last issue, the group, together with the Swanage Railway, carried off the Heritage Railway Association Chairman’s Special Award 2024 at the presentation evening at the Double Tree by Hilton Metropole Hotel in Brighton on February 10 for the restoration of William Adams T3 No. 563.
The T3 was donated to the Swanage Railway Trust by the National Railway Museum in 2017 and began a £650,000 six-year restoration (almost entirely covered by donations), with work on the carried out by specialist contractors at the Flour Mill workshops at Bream in the Forest of Dean, as well as at the Swanage Railway’s Herston engineering works.
On October 7, church bells rang out in Swanage as No. 563, resplendent in its new lined-out 1890s Drummond passenger green livery, hauled its first passenger train since 1945, as highlighted in issue 312. The locomotive was withdrawn by the Southern Railway after running more than 1.5 million miles, before being used to help celebrate the centenary of Waterloo station in 1948.
Thanks for support
Group chairman Nathan Au, a volunteer driver on the railway, said: “We are also very grateful to everyone who has been involved with the T3’s restoration for their hard work and commitment, as well as to our supporters for their donations, contributions, and faith in the project that turned a non-working exhibit into a fully working steam locomotive from the late Victorian era.
“It was a thrill to see the T3 steam for the first time and drive the locomotive when it hauled its first passenger trains since 1945 – experiencing what it was like to be a Victorian engineman.”
Trust chairman Frank Roberts, a Swanage volunteer of 40 years, said: “I would like to thank the NRM for its faith in donating the T3 to the Swanage Railway Trust so the
Victorian locomotive could be fully restored for the public to enjoy it hauling passenger trains for the first time since 1945.
“Had it not been for the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, and then the celebrations marking the centenary of London’s Waterloo station, No. 563 – the last of the T3s – would have been cut up for scrap metal.
Living history
“The T3 is a time machine, a living and breathing machine when glamorous railways ruled supreme with their brightly painted and highly polished steam locomotives.
“When No. 563 was born, the motor car was a curiosity and the first aeroplane had yet to fly. Railways powered by steam dominated the movement of people and freight.
“By the time the T3 was retired after the Second World War, the transport landscape had changed forever; the dawn of mass motoring was on the horizon and aircraft were crossing the world.”
Also based at Swanage is T9 ‘Greyhound’ No. 30120, which is owned by the NRM, but which has not run since September 2020, when its boiler certificate expired.
Its previous heavy overhaul saw the Flour Mill carry out repairs to the cylinder block before it returned to steam in August 2010, and the Bream experts could well be involved in its next overhaul.
A 563 Group statement said: “No. 30120 – or 120, as we shall generally refer to it from now on – is now very much on the ‘front burner’ so far as the 563 Locomotive Group is concerned.
“We are now at the stage of crossing the Ts and dotting the Is with the NRM and expect to make an announcement very shortly.
“As you may appreciate, 120 is a national asset – it is public property – and this dictates that all those who care for it as owner and custodian are clear about their respective responsibilities. We take these very seriously, as we are keen to ensure that 120 becomes part of the core Swanage steam fleet.
No. 563 will be used on selected days throughout the 2024 season, including during the Victorian Weekend taking place on March 2224, when it will be joined by SECR O1 0-6-0 No. 65 visiting from the Bluebell Railway.
Both will run alongside U 2-6-0 No. 31806 and rebuilt West Country 4-6-2 No. 34028 Eddystone in a busy timetable across all three days.
➜ The Swanage Railway has also just won the Business of the Year Award from The Total Guide to Tourism in the Purbeck Business Awards for its contribution to tourism in the Isle of Purbeck.