SAVING A STANDARD
Snowbound film star No. 78018 has a fire in its belly once again
For a few seconds, one could be forgiven for thinking that it’s the out-takes from Scott of the Antarctic, as a featureless polar landscape appears on screen, and the bleak sound of the howling wind sends shivers down your spine. But then, as the astounded tones of a newsreader break in to say that the heavy snow showers are continuing, the camera pans round to find something distinctly man-made… a telegraph pole followed by the unmistakable shape of a BR Standard ‘2MT’ 2-6-0, halfburied in the snow. Inside the engine’s cab, all is silent and still, the needles on the driver’s gauges pointing resolutely to zero, the floor and the fireman’s controls covered in the thick white blanket from the sub-zero conditions outside. Such is the dramatic opening to Snowdrift at Bleath Gill, the classic British Transport Films documentary that transports the viewer back in time to February 1955, and the rescue of a stranded train from arctic conditions on the Stainmore route. Over 60 years later, the engine in question - No. 78018 still survives, but for a great deal of that time has been as cold and dead as it was on that snowy day near Stainmore Summit. Now, thanks to over three decades of unstinting work by two volunteer groups, it’s been given warmth and life once again.
Star-crossed
As this issue goes on sale, No. 78018 will be making its public debut at the Great Central Railway’s Autumn Steam Gala of October 6-9 - almost exactly 50 years since it was pensioned off by BR at a mere 12 years of age, in November 1966. It’s a happy coincidence, but then there have been quite a few of those in this engine’s life. Something, it seems, was written in the stars for this ‘baby Standard’, whose ‘15 minutes of fame’ arose simply from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. For instance, one of the other actors in the unfolding drama at Bleath Gill was John ‘Jackie’ Leng, a fitter at Darlington Bank Top shed, whom the viewer sees setting fire to oil-soaked cotton waste to thaw out No. 78018’s frozen rods and motion. Over a quarter of a century later, he was back at work on the ‘2MT’ - this time to help the Darlington Railway Preservation Society begin restoring it from Barry scrapyard condition. “But he wasn’t proud of what he did,” remembers DRPS Chairman Barrie Lamb. “Years later he would still curse that film crew for being in the area - he’d say: ‘It was only a coal train and if they hadn’t turned up, we’d have left the b **** r there to thaw out!’ “They were up there for five days, with the snow over the telegraph poles, the temperature at minus 20 degrees, and nothing but picks, shovels and Tilley lamps. “They went up there without any food, and a local farmer had to bring them sandwiches and tea.” ‘Jackie’, who died in May 2012 at the age of 90, was not the only BR employee whose path crossed with No. 78018 during his working life, and who would later become instrumental in the engine’s preservation. The late Geoff Jackson - a fitter at Darlington North Road works, and later at No. 78018’s home shed of Kirkby Stephen - was one of the initial five donors who kick-started the fund to buy the locomotive in 1981, along with Barrie Lamb, Barry Cox, DRPS Treasurer Keith Walshaw, and Dick Ellison. Ex-BR expertise was invaluable to the fledging group as it set out on the long road of bringing the ‘Mogul’ back to life - for Barrie Lamb, then proprietor of a model railway shop in Darlington, freely admits that he’s no engineer. He sums up the whole story, in fact, as “how to set up a preservation society without really trying!”
“It was an adventure that we went into as blind as bats,” he comments. “Who in their right mind would buy 86 tons of locomotive with nowhere to put it?”
‘Tormentor’
Probably like most preservation schemes, it all began over what would turn out to be a very expensive few pints. Barrie casts his mind back to 1980, when he was in the pub with Barry Cox - later to become vice-chairman of the DRPS, and who he jokingly describes as “my tormentor!” “He pointed out that Darlington had built thousands of locomotives, and yet there wasn’t one preserved here, to tell our children that their grandfathers built it. “From that pint he was pushing me for it…but if you were ever down, he was the one who’d cheer you up. “That’s how we got drawn into it - the next thing we knew, we’d called a meeting to form the DRPS and 130-odd people turned up.” The first Darlington-built engine they set their sights on was in full working order - ‘J72’ 0-6-0T No. 69023 ‘Joem’, which at the time was up for sale following the closure of the Derwent Valley Railway in York. Constructed in 1951 as the last of a long bloodline stretching back to 1898, it fitted the requirement of celebrating the town’s railway history, and was just the right size for the DRPS’ proposal - a short running line in the ‘field’ between North Road station museum and Hopetown carriage works. In the event, the Worsdell-designed tank was sold to the North Eastern Locomotive Preservation Group - “but Geoff Jackson said he’d heard that there was a Standard for sale,” remembers Barrie. “I didn’t even know what a Standard was then.” It was, of course, No. 78018, stored at Shackerstone on the Battlefield Line - just a few miles from one of its former sheds, Nuneaton, but a long way from its Darlington birthplace. It had arrived at Market Bosworth from Barry on October 31 1978, being towed to Shackerstone by exDerwent Valley Railway Class 04 diesel No. D2245 - but aside from some protective coats of many colours, little restoration had been done by the time the DRPS first clapped eyes on it three years later. “It was painted green and pink,” remembers Barrie, “and a local firm donated us some black emulsion.” First port of call was the nearby home of Bill Barton, Chairman & Managing Director of trailer manufacturers Barton Hover Engineering Ltd, an early supporter of what was then called the Market Bosworth Light Railway and the owner of No. 78018. “You’ve got to give him his due - he was honest with us,” recalls Barrie. “I made him an offer of £5,000, but he said: ‘Well lad, sup your coffee, get in the car and head back to Darlington, because I’m not open to offers.’ “But he said that he did want the engine to go back to Darlington, and that he had £10,000 on the table from a group of railwaymen just outside London - the EppingOngar branch was mentioned - so if we could match that in four weeks, we could have it.” And so, with hearts ruling heads, the DRPS set out to bring the ‘baby Standard’ home. In a frantic, whirlwind month of fundraising, says Barrie, “we did anything and everything - we were going round every supermarket getting black-and-white TVs and Flymos to put in raffles. “One member pledged £2,000, but two weeks later said he couldn’t honour it because his wife had found out - but he stuck with us and helped with the raffles.” The society even enlisted the help of the locomotive’s designer, Robert Riddles, who signed 100 first day covers and kindly sent a cheque for £25 to cover the postage. “When we got to £8,000, I rang Bill Barton,” continues Barrie, “and he said: ‘You’ve done well - OK, you can have another four weeks!” With the fund topped up by the aforementioned five donations, the locomotive was duly secured for £11,500 (including VAT) in June 1981. Now came the next challenge - getting it back to Darlington. “Barry Cox knew someone in a transport firm who offered us a good price,” remembers Barrie, “and Newcastle Brown Ale sponsored the movement.” But for him, the low-loader move on July 3 1981 would be memorable for other reasons and once again, there were a few pints involved.
Pub crawl
“I went down to Market Bosworth the day before to sign it onto the low-loader - and had to go round five pubs to find the driver and crew. “We stayed overnight in the wagon and celebrated with a crate of beer, and I woke up in the grass at 7 o’clock next morning - I’ve never been so sloshed in my life. “A friend of mine was the manager at Radio Rentals, and had lent us a video camera the size of a suitcase with huge batteries - but I was so hungover, my son Anthony had to take all the photographs and footage.” No. 78018 had an appointment to keep in Darlington at 7pm that evening, when it would be displayed in the town square to be welcomed home by the mayor and TV crews. Despite the over-indulgence of the previous night, both Barrie and the locomotive made it safely home - though he recalls: “The council had given it their blessing - but there was a sewer underneath the square, and their engineers were worried it wouldn’t take the weight. They hadn’t realised the engine was so big.” So, having bought such a ‘big engine’, what to do with it next? That was a good question, admits Barrie: “We realised that we had nowhere to put it - we were so hellbent on getting it back to Darlington we didn’t think of that. “Luckily, the Northern Echo newspaper had been running updates on our fundraising, and they put out an appeal” - which was answered by Henry Wynn-Williams, owner of an engineering firm based in Boots Yard. “It arrived there on Thursday, and by Sunday we were taking it apart!” The group worked on No. 78018 in the open for three years, only to be told in 1984 that they had to move it on “next weekend” when the company landed a contract in Brazil and needed extra space in the yard. But in another example of the planets aligning for our star locomotive, sanctuary was found in the 1833 Stockton & Darlington Railway goods shed next to North Road station, thanks to Darlington Borough Council. Believed to be the oldest railway building in the world still in railway use, it was just a stone’s throw from where the ‘2MT’ had been built 30 years before. Three more decades and approximately £130,000 later - and with the sponsorship of Darlington-based firm M-Machine, who supplied materials and carried out machining work - the DRPS had completed the ‘bottom half’ of the ‘Mogul’. But by 2012, says Barrie, “we’d reached the stage where we’d done all we could” in the confines of the shed, which had also become home to the society’s collection of other locomotives with Darlington connections, including Peckett 0-4-0ST W/No. 2142
Northern Gas Board No. 1. Barrie adds: “Most groups start on a railway and get the locomotive - we bought the locomotive and have never had a line.” The ‘2MT’ was inspected for main line running, but plans for steam specials over S&D metals between Darlington and Bishop Auckland never materialised - so instead, the engine was moved to preservation’s own main line. A deal was struck with the Loughborough Standard Locomotive Group in 2012, and No. 78018 arrived at the Great Central Railway in November of that year. LSLG Company Secretary Andy Fillingham relates: “The first talk of it coming here was in 2006 when No. 78019 visited Darlington museum - but when we finished Ivatt No. 46521 in 2012, we were looking for another project and made contact again. “It was amazing just how many bits it had - almost all the non-ferrous parts had already been made.” Explains Barrie: “Whenever we raised any money, we’d buy fittings rather than put it into the bank - now it wouldn’t be worth as much and you’d pay four times the price.”
We realised that we had nowhere to put it
Andy continues: “We hoped we could finish it in 18 months, but it’s taken three years!” What took the extra time was the large copper pipework - which still had to be made, along with the boiler cladding and crinolines, dome cover, lubricator drive, sandbox lids and cab windows - and one big component, the boiler. This was sent to LNWR Crewe for a new front barrel ring and tubeplate, as well as repairs to the foundation ring; funded by the LSLG to the tune of £65,000, it’s expected that this work will be good for 20 to 30 years.
Friends reunited
In another heartwarming piece of synchronicity, the move to the GCR reunited the ‘2MT’ with No. 78019 - the next off the production line at Darlington in 1954, and now part-owned by the LSLG, which restored it from Barry condition between 1998 and 2004. A glance at the panel on page 76 will show how, like the identical twins that they are, these engines seem to be inseparable - working the gruelling Stainmore route together for six years, meeting up at the same sheds later in their careers, and even being withdrawn in the same week (albeit from different locations). But even identical twins are individual characters with their own personalities and little foibles - and BR footplatemen who earned their daily crust on steam, in particular, are all too familiar with the strange phenomenon of how two supposedly identical, consecutively-numbered engines, built in the same workshops within weeks of one another, can be as different as chalk and cheese. Andy Fillingham recalls: “When we took No. 78019 to ‘Stainmore 150’, the Kirkby Stephen enginemen all said they ‘weren’t surprised that ’18 got stuck in the drift gutless thing that it was - ’19 was much stronger’!” There’ll be plenty of time for Loughborough crews to compare the two, for the agreement sees No. 78018 based at the GCR for the next ten years, with provision for the DRPS to take it elsewhere for four weeks in any year. Meanwhile, No. 78019’s ‘ten-yearly’ overhaul is well under way, with its boiler sent to Tyseley. Like ships passing in the night, the opportunity to steam the pair together slipped by in May 2015, when No. 78019 was withdrawn from service after 11 years and 56,000 miles. Already running on an extended boiler certificate, it had to be pulled out of traffic when a blow in the smokebox - initially thought to be a leaking superheater element - turned out to be a hole in one of the main steam pipes to the cylinders. But the silver lining is that, once No. 78019 returns which hopefully shouldn’t take too long - the twins will be able to spend a fair chunk of boiler ‘ticket’ time together, reliving their halcyon 1950s spell on the Stainmore line.
Tributes
Rather ironically, Barrie remembers: “When we got No. 78018 to Darlington and everyone was asking us how long it would take, we said ‘two years - one to dismantle it and one to put it back together…’ “It’s been blood, sweat and tears for nearly 40 years, and now we can hardly believe that the day has finally come!” Too many people have been involved during that time to name individually, but Barrie wishes to pay particular tribute to Cyril Flowers, Malcolm Simpson - the society’s CME for nearly 20 years - and to the LSLG, who he says simply “are a great crowd and have done a great job.” But he also wishes to remember the many people involved who, sadly, did not live to see the historic day especially the man with perhaps the strongest personal connection of all to the locomotive: ‘Jackie’ Leng. He may not have been proud of his role in rescuing it from the snowdrift at Bleath Gill - but if he could see No. 78018 now, says Barrie: “He’d be over the moon.”