BLUEBELL RAILWAY APPROVES PROJECT TO BUILD REPLICA SECR 4-4-0
A proposal to build a new South Eastern & Chatham Railway ‘E’ class 4-4-0 has received the green light from the Bluebell Railway.
The Sussex line’s board, society and trust have fully endorsed the scheme for the recreated Wainwright engine, put forward by the Brighton ‘Atlantic’ Group as a follow-up to its replica of LBSCR ‘H2’ 4-4-2 No. 32424 Beachy Head (SR494).
Drawings and materials will now be collected with the intention of starting work on the ‘E’ class as soon as No. 32424 is complete, which the group aims to achieve in the summer of 2021. Beachy Head’s boiler – originally from a Great Northern Railway ‘Atlantic’ – passed its hydraulic test in October (SR499).
The new ‘E’ will be a replica of No. 516, which was used to haul the Royal Train. An appeal for funds will be launched in the new year, and it is estimated that the project will take between ten and 13 years to complete at a cost of around £2.5 million.
Atlantic Group chairman Terry
Cole said: “After the sometimes fiendish complexities of the ‘Atlantic’, we were looking for something rather simpler which would be easy to build and easy for the railway to maintain.
“We plan to build it in original condition in full SECR livery, which is very attractive and popular. It would add a locomotive type widely used on the Southern Railway but which the Bluebell Railway currently doesn’t have: the pre-Grouping 4-4-0.”