A PIECE OF 44781 IS IN THE NATIONAL COLLECTION
‘Black Five’ No. 44781 was tragically lost to preservation… yet we’ve all been staring at a surviving piece of it for 50 years without knowing it.
In the last known photograph of the famous ‘Fifteen Guinea Special’ locomotive (SR498) – taken on December 7 1968 as it awaited scrapping at Bartlow, following the filming of The Virgin Soldiers – the Stanier 4-6-0’s smokebox door ‘dart’ handles have disappeared.
Five decades on, we’ve discovered where they went: they’re on Stanier 2-6-4T No. 2500 in the National Railway Museum.
David Ward who, in 1968, was involved with the developing Bressingham Steam Museum that was No. 2500’s first permanent preservation home, explains that, when the former London, Tilbury & Southend ‘4P’ arrived at Norwich shed from storage at Brighton’s Preston Park depot, its original dart was missing, leaving the smokebox door unsecured.
So David, who at the time was also BR’s Divisional Commercial Manager at Norwich, ‘liberated’ No. 44781’s handles when he happened to be in the Bartlow area.
“I pinched them,” he admits. “I didn’t have permission – but as far as I was concerned, I was BR and it was on BR land.”
Interestingly, the date of December 7 given for Tim Stephens’ Bartlow picture doesn’t quite tally with those of the 2-6-4T’s initial restoration at Norwich, under the direction of shedmaster Bill Harvey. Richard Adderson – a member of the Norfolk Railway Society, who helped clean the “absolutely filthy” engine on its arrival – says: “The contemporary NRS newsletters say that 42500 arrived at Norwich shed at 00.34 on December 8 1968. I don’t know when it was hauled to Diss, but it left there on a Sunter Bros low-loader for Bressingham on December 21.”
Tim himself says: “After half a century I cannot be certain of the date, but it is likely to be correct.” He adds, however, that a friend found some parts from the LMS carriages that were also cut up at Bartlow – and took them to the Severn Valley Railway.
Mike Archer-Smith, formerly the treasurer of the Bitton 8F Group at the Avon Valley Railway, says that his organisation acquired No. 44781’s salvaged connecting rods from Carnforth for their 2-8-0 No. 48173. This ex-Barry engine is now in the ownership of Greg Wilson and under restoration at the Churnet Valley Railway.
Gerald Pagano, the owner of a furniture shop in Saffron Walden, had agreed to purchase No. 44781 from Columbia Pictures for preservation, but was thwarted by BR’s quote of £5,000 to re-rail it and tow it to Steamtown Carnforth. Instead, he purchased Norwegian 2-6-0 No. 377 ‘King Haakon 7’ and took it to Bressingham, where it remains today.
His original intention, however, had been for the Scandinavian ‘Mogul’ to operate on the Lakeside branch, says Chris Beet, whose late father Dr Peter Beet founded Steamtown and the original Lakeside preservation scheme. The Beet family’s Ivatt ‘2MT’ 2-6-0 No. 46441, also acquired for the branch, was to have been named ‘Lady of the Lake’, he adds.
“I only heard this second-hand,” he admits, “but Dad told me on several occasions that, after 44781 was scrapped, BR wrote to Gerald and said ‘sorry, we’ve made a mistake, the price was £500’!”