HUDSWELL CLARKE ‘PLA’ 0-6-0T No. 1800/1947
There’s an exception to every rule: the youngest Thomas in preservation is actually unlicensed!
Hudswell Clarke, as we’ve seen, was the locomotive builder of choice for the Manchester Ship Canal. But it also supplied another prominent waterside railway system.
The Port of London Authority maintained some 140 miles of railway along the docks and wharves of the river Thames. Hudswell Clarke’s ‘PLA Type’ couldn’t have looked more different to the ‘Canal’ class. They were meaty, outsidecylinder side tanks, with deep bufferbeams. Only the access holes in the tanks and the shape of the smokebox suggested that they came from the same builder.
The ‘PLA Type’ was introduced during the First World War and they were still being built, with a few tweaks, after the Second World War. Though they might have been designed for the Port of London Authority, these powerful 0-6-0Ts found favour with a number of other users. One surprise purchaser was the British Sugar Corporation.
The British Sugar Corporation was formed in 1936, pre-dating the post-war Labour nationalisation programme. The idea was to help stabilise the 18 factories producing sugar from British beet rather than imported cane, in what was still a very new industry.
BSC inherited a varied locomotive fleet and it only ordered a handful of locomotives before the war. Two of these were Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0STS: No. 1682 in 1937 for Newark sugar factory and No. 1700 for Wissington in 1938. It’s surprising to realise that when they were built, Frank Whittle was experimenting with the jet engine; they look as though they were new when Queen Victoria sat on the throne!
Could that be why BSC ordered a ‘PLA Type’ for Peterborough sugar factory in 1947? Though an old design, it looked infinitely more modern. It was a complete contrast to the only other steam locomotive BSC ordered after the Second World War (Andrew Barclay 0-4-0ST No. 2248, new to Kidderminster in 1948). Thomas The Tank Engine was published in 1946, the year before No. 1800 was delivered to Peterborough. When the Peterborough Railway Society moved ‘5MT’ No. 73050 into a corner of the sugar factory in 1971, Reverend Awdry had published 25 ‘Thomas’ books and was working on the 26th and last. Thomas was not quite the national institution he was to become, but he was popular enough for No. 1800’s boxy shape and blue livery to gain a new nickname. That nickname became official at the society’s June 1971 open day when No. 1800 was named Thomas by Reverend Awdry himself.
Consequently, as hard as corporations such as HIT Entertainment may try, the Nene Valley Railway’s Thomas remains very much his own locomotive!