IndustRIAL Round-uP

Andrew Barclay 0-4-0ST Works No. 2047: This former Yoker power station locomotive returned to traffic after overhaul at the Plym Valley Railway on April 1. It continues to carry the pseudo GWR identity of No. 705, which it has worn since its time at the East Somerset Railway. Hawthorn Leslie 0-4-0ST Works No. 3135 Invincible: Volunteers at the Isle of Wight Steam Railway have cleaned and repainted the boiler and cladding from the former Woolwich Arsenal shunter. Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0T Manchester Ship Canal No. 70 (Works No. 1464): Volunteers at the Swindon & Cricklade Railway have removed 75% of this engine’s firebox stays in preparation for removing the inner firebox and foundation ring. The front tubeplate is also to be removed shortly, while the valve gear is being dismantled, and the frames and brake hangers are being overhauled. Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns 0-4-0ST No. 15 ‘Eustace Forth’ (Works No. 7063): De-accessioned from the National Railway Museum to the Foxfield Railway in 2014, this locomotive will be back in familiar surroundings this summer when it returns to Locomotion at Shildon. It is due to headline the County Durham site’s ‘Festival of Steam’ over May 5-7 alongside 1863-built Furness Railway 0-4-0 No. 20, which is approaching the end of its current boiler ‘ticket’. The RSH will then take over as the principal motive power for the remainder of the season. Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns ‘Austerity’ 0-6-0ST No. 49 (Works No. 7098): The boiler of the Tanfield Railway-based locomotive passed its steam test at the works of Israel Newton & Sons in Derbyshire on March 27. The firm is also producing a new smokebox for the ex-NCB Backworth engine. Rarely featured in the railway press but celebrating its 95th birthday in 2018 is the ‘other’ locomotive named Winston Churchill – Manning Wardle 0-6-0ST Works No. 2025, plinthed at the entrance to the Black Country Living Museum. Built in 1923, it went new to Cadbury Brothers in Bournville where it carried the number 7 and worked until 1946. Having spent some time as a works shunter for Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns in Darlington, it was then sold on to Guy Pitt & Co for use on the Pensnett Railway in Staffordshire.