Saving of LMS 7069
September 3 marked the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War. RICHARD FOSTER tells the story of a wartime diesel locomotive, its near 50-year exile from Britain, and its painstaking restoration back to working condition
RAIL tells the story of a wartime locomotive, its near 50-year exile from Britain, and its restoration back to working condition.
Neville Chamberlain’s calm, measured tone still sends a chill down the spine 80 years later: “This country is at war with Germany.” Those seven simple words would change the world forever. The dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945 that would effectively bring the Second World War to a close used a technology that few who listened to British Prime Minister Chamberlain on September 3 1939 would ever have believed was possible for humanity to create.
Back then most people were still in shock at the prospect of another war with Germany.
After all, the ink had barely dried on the Treaty of Versailles that had brought the last bloody encounter to an official end just 20 years beforehand. No one wanted to go
through that again.
The British and French expected another static war, with both sides slogging it out in trenches, separated by a few yards of ‘no man’s land’. But Hitler had other ideas. His troops, superbly armed, disciplined and fuelled by methamphetamine, burst through the Ardennes forest in May 1940 and raced towards the English Channel.
The story of Operation Dynamo and the evacuation of the bulk of the British Expeditionary Force from the Dunkirk beaches has been told countless times. But it’s often forgotten that Britain lost more than 60,000 troops to Hitler’s blitzkrieg, and was forced to abandon hundreds of tanks, guns, ammunition and other stores as they hastily retreated.
The usual wartime materiel wasn’t the only thing that the British left behind.
Fast-forward to the 1970s and enthusiast Mike Hoskin wanted to save one of the steam locomotives from the rows that were rusting away at Dai Woodham’s scrapyard at Barry Docks. But the consensus at the time was that everything left at Barry had been pillaged for spares and would cost too much money to restore (history has subsequently proved how wrong those naysayers were!).
Undeterred, Hoskin turned his attention to Turkey.
The LMS ‘8F’ 2-8-0, designed by William Stanier, was Britain’s standard war locomotive. The War Department initially ordered hundreds for service in France but, thanks
to Hitler, they were either sent to the North African and Middle Eastern theatres as well as helping out Britain’s beleaguered railway companies.
Chamberlain’s successor as Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was desperate to draw neutral Turkey on to the Allies’ side. As Britain was unable to fulfil an order for 50 2-8-0s for Turkish State Railways, 20 ‘8Fs’ were diverted there as a form of compensation. They were not really suited to the harsh conditions in Turkey but, despite the fact that BR had withdrawn its last ‘8Fs’ on August 4 1968, some of TCDD’s fleet was still active into the 1980s.
Hoskin thought that an ex-Turkish ‘8F’ in working order was a much better investment than an ex-Barry wreck. His investigations led him to locomotive historian George Toms, who revealed that there were other LMS locomotives that had been shipped to Europe during the war that were still there. Hoskin’s curiosity was piqued.
Italian State Railways (Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane) still had four ex-LMS ‘jackshaft’ 0-60DEs still in service. As the purchase price FS quoted was too high, he turned his attention closer to home, to a unique survivor that was mouldering away on the outskirts of Paris.
The LMS already had a mixed fleet of small diesel mechanicals on its books when it ordered 20 six-coupled diesel electrics from Armstrong Whitworth and English Electric in 1936. The AW locomotives worked at Crewe South (7059-7063) and Carlisle Kingmoor (7064-7068) yards.
Meanwhile, the EE locomotives, numbered 7069-7078, were delivered from builder Hawthorn Leslie. The War Department requisitioned eight in December 1939 and shipped them to France for shunting BEF Petrol Oil & Lubricant Depots. All eight, along with 95 ex-GWR ‘Dean Goods’ and eight LMS ‘Jinty’ 0-6-0Ts, had been abandoned during the BEF’s hasty retreat.
The Germans found 7069 (or WD No. 18 as it had become) near Nantes. They used it until forced to retreat themselves after D-Day in 1944, leaving 7069 near Le Mans. The French army used 7069 at the General Reserve Munitions Depot until the mid-1950s, when
it became part of the Chemin de Fer de Mamers à Saint Calais fleet. Classmate WD5 (LMS 7075) had survived the war too, and had been sold to a waterworks south-east of Paris where it became a stationary generator before being scrapped.
Abandoned in the early 1970s, Hoskin discovered that 7069 was languishing in the yard of locomotive dealer Louis Patry SA. He recalled the lengthy negotiations in RAIL 78 (March 1988). After six years of wrangling plus mounting a legal challenge after another preservation society bought the locomotive even though Patry SA had agreed to sell it to Hoskin, 7069 touched UK metals again on November 28 1987. Its French exile had started on May 6 1940, four days before Hitler invaded.
Hoskin is convinced that the reason it had remained with Patry SA for so long was that it was non-standard and no one wanted it.
“It was in original condition,” he recalls, 32 years after bringing it home. “It was only missing a fuel pump and a secondary oil pump.”
It was in such surprisingly good order that Hoskin and his team did consider starting it up. However, they went off the idea after looking at the poor state of its vulcanised rubber wiring insulation.
The start of 7069’s restoration had been planned. But by this time Hoskin and three colleagues successfully repatriated Turkish ‘8F’ No. 45160 in 1989 and its overhaul took priority. As a result, 7069 had to wait until No. 45160 returned to steam in 2010.
Despite this, 7069 is actually fairly close to getting back to work.
“It’s been an interesting restoration,” Hoskin says. “We’ve just got to overhaul the main generator and re-assemble the power unit.”
Restoration revealed some traces of its wartime career, namely the half-inch holes peppered down one side.
It was first assumed it had been attacked by the Luftwaffe. However, an ammunitions expert revealed that these were not the holes left by German steel shells but were instead the results of lead shells used by the Royal Air Force.
“We’ve had to patch them up, mainly because they were near the fuel tank,” says Hoskin, “but we’ve kept one which will have a brass plaque to say that the locomotive was shot at by the RAF sometime between the fall of France in 1940 and it being liberated in 1944/1945.”
Few preserved locomotives have wartime careers as interesting as 7069’s. But what makes it even more remarkable is that it dates from the very early days of diesel development. Hoskin’s claim that 7069 is the “diesel version of Stephenson’s Rocket” is not far off the mark.
Though both the GWR and the Southern dabbled in diesel technology, it was the LMS that pioneered the technology and pushed its development.
When war was declared in 1939, it had 27 diesel electrics on its books (with more under construction) as well as eight diesel mechanicals from a variety of manufacturers,
plus ex-Midland Railway ‘1F’ 0-6-0T No. 1831, which had been rebuilt as a diesel in 1931.
Armstrong Whitworth and English Electric were pioneers of the diesel electric concept in Britain. The LMS had bought its first diesel electric, No. 7058, from AW in 1934 and had allowed EE to trial one later that year. That’s why it authorised the purchase of 20, ten each.
The AW machines features an ArmstrongSulzer engine and single Crompton-Parkinson traction motor, which drove the wheels via double reduction gears and jackshafts. Delivered in 1935, they only had short careers with the LMS. All ten were called up by the War Department, with four going to North Africa in 1941 and the remainder heading to Europe after D-Day. Only WD216 (LMS 7063) would work in Britain again, ending its days at Hams Hall power station in 1967.
It looked to be a straight race between Armstrong Whitworth and English Electric about which one would supply the next generation of diesels but, in 1937, AW dropped out. The engineering giant had converted one of its factories to locomotive construction after the Great War but, faced with a growing threat from Nazi Germany, turned back to armament manufacturing.
The field was clear for English Electric. This engineering conglomerate, formed in 1918, worked with locomotive manufacturer Hawthorn Leslie to build 7069-7078. They featured EE’s 350hp 6K engine and had two traction motors, which powered the leading and trailing coupled wheels. The ten, LMS 7069-7078, were joined by EE’s 1934 demonstrator, which became 7079.
The arrangement of engine, transmission and 11ft 6in wheelbase was significant – these are all the key components for BR’s famous Class 08. English Electric, of course, would work together with the LMS to produce the pioneering diesels 10000 and 10001 in 1947/48 that would eventually lead to the likes of the Class 20s, ‘37s’, ‘40s’ and ‘Deltics’.
“That’s why we’re obliged to do it properly,” says Hoskin of 7069’s overhaul. “We’ve undertaken a full nut and bolt restoration to take it back to original condition. This is the first time it’s looked like this since 1935. It’s a real privilege to work on it.”
Despite its age, the overhaul has been comparatively simple. It’s been fully re-wired, although the high voltage cabling has been retained, albeit with new insulating sleeves. All the cab cabling has been replaced. The traction motors have been rebuilt and even the original cab gauges have been restored.
Restoring such an old machine might have been difficult but Hoskin and his team were fortunate to obtain drawings and manuals from General Electric Company (the now defunct successor to English Electric). Even the locomotive’s air-braking system might have been a headache but it was discovered to be a standard Westinghouse system.
“The compressor is standard, too,” says Hoskin. “We found a good one from a breaker’s.”
When 7069 entered service in January 1936, the LMS had only 179 of its famous Stanier ‘Black Fives’ in service (there would, when production ceased in 1951, be 842 of them). Stanier’s famous streamlined ‘Princess Coronations’ were on the drawing board and LNER ‘A4’ Mallard’s 126mph dash down Stoke Bank was still two years away. 7069, therefore, was very much built with steam-era technology.
“This is a steam locomotive diesel electric,” says Hoskin. “Everything bolts together like a steam engine. It was state-of-the-art at the time and absolutely bomb proof.”
It makes a perfect project for Hoskin and his team. “We’ve overhauled a steam engine so we’ve rebuilt and re-metalled the axleboxes. All the machining we’ve done ourselves. There’s nothing complicated about it. It’s a real labour of love but it’s been an absolute joy to work on,” he says.
One area showing 7069’s steam era ancestry is the pipework. Today’s locomotives have colour-coded pipework to identify which are for oil, water, fuel and air. This system evolved in the 1950s to aid maintenance. But the LMS painted everything black, just like a steam locomotive. In 7069 the cab pipework is black for authenticity but there are now standard colours in the engine compartment to make life easier for maintenance.
Another unique feature is 7069’s English Electric 6K engine. This is a forerunner to the 6KT used in the ‘08’ but very different (as Hoskin found out when trying to use ‘08’ parts!).
“As far as we know there’s no other 6K engine in UK preservation,” he says.
Despite best intentions, 7069 needed one other piece of equipment that it didn’t have in 1935 – train brakes. “We’ve fitted vacuum brakes,” Hoskin says. “And the vacuum exhauster sits in a cradle under the frames.”
Amid much fanfare 7069 returned to the UK in 1987. Since then, however, most enthusiasts will have forgotten about it. That will change, of course, when the vaguely Class 08-looking shunter returns to action. But the $ 64,000 question is ‘when’?
Since its return to Britain 7069 has led a fairly nomadic life. It was initially based at the Swanage Railway, before moving to a private site at Hamworthy, near Poole. It followed ‘8F’ No. 45160 to the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway before finding a home at the embryonic Vale of Berkeley Railway, based at Sharpness Docks in Gloucestershire, in 2015.
However, Sharpness won’t be 7069’s final home. “We want to set up our own headquarters in Gloucestershire,” Hoskin reveals.
He remains tight-lipped over where that might be but he plans for it to have covered accommodation for both 7069 and No. 45160, as well as the group’s ‘Black Five’ No. 44901 and a small collection of LMS rolling stock. There should be enough space for a small running line too.
Diesel shunters, regardless of original, tend to be the poor relations on most preserved
railways. Often, they are viewed as a piece of plant, used for shunting with minimal maintenance, as their more glamorous shed-mates claim the lion’s share of limited resources. But 7069 is too historically important to be treated like this. By finding a permanent base, Hoskin and his team can ensure that 7069 will be treated with the respect it deserves.
“Once we’ve relocated, we’ll complete the restoration,” he says. “There’s probably a couple of years’ work left in it.”
That doesn’t mean you won’t be able to see 7069. It will visit other preserved railways and a stay at the National Railway Museum is on the cards.
Along with 7069, there are only six other LMS-built diesels left: Dick Kerr 0-4-0DM 7050 (NRM), Hunslet 0-6-0DM 7051 (Middleton Railway, Leeds) and two 350hp 0-6-0DEs WD878 (Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway) and WD269 (Het Spoorwegmuseum, Utrecht). Hopefully, they can be reunited one day. And Hoskin still has ambitions to bring home one of the LMS built ‘jackshaft’ 0-60DEs from Italy.
Wherever 7069 visits, Hoskin and his colleagues will go with it. 7069’s days of being abandoned to its fate are over.