NRM PUTS HANDYMAN AND ‘BAR NUM’ UP FOR DISPOSAL
Hudswell Clarke to be seventh steam locomotive to be deaccessioned from National Collection.
RESTORING HANDYMAN IS NOT A VIABLE PROJECT FOR THE MUSEUM NRM
Rare three-foot gauge Hudswell Clarke 0-4-0ST Handyman and an ex-Great Central Railway ‘Barnum’ coach are up for disposal from the National Railway Museum.
The pair are among a number of items of rolling stock advertised for disposal in the Science Museum Group’s June-August 2020 list of Objects Available for Transfer, in addition to an ex-LMS 16-ton plough brake van, an ex-GCR single bogie bolster wagon and a BR 16-ton mineral wagon.
Ex-Burton, Cranford and Scaldwell ironstone quarries Handyman (Works No. 573 of 1900) is currently stored in a semidismantled and unrestored state on a ‘Lowmac’ wagon in the North Yard at York, while 1910-built GCR ‘Barnum’ Open Third No. 666 is presently stored at Ruddington at the Great Central Railway (Nottingham) – where the GCR Rolling Stock Trust is restoring its own rake of ‘Barnum’ coaches.
Outlining the museum’s reasoning for disposing of both vehicles, an NRM spokesman told Steam Railway: “Neither vehicle fits the National Railway Museum’s criteria for preservation, nor our plans for display, and we believe that a more appropriate future for them rests outside the collection. Restoring Handyman is not a viable project for the museum given the amount of work required and the resources available. Transferring the locomotive to a new owner will ensure it can be restored and returned to public display.
“The ‘Barnum’ carriage is not representative of carriage stock on the wider railway network and we believe we can tell its story in a way that does not involve holding the original item. The carriage came to the NRM in 1983 from use as a mess room at Barnetby and has been out on loan for over 30 years. It is an interesting vehicle, but not unique, and is more regionally than nationally significant.”
The NRM said that it had not received any formal expressions of interest for the ‘Barnum’ coach but had two offers for Handyman. One of these is from the Halesworth to Southwold Narrow Gauge Railway Society, which previously expressed an interest in the “eminently restorable” locomotive in 2017. HSNGRS co-chairman James Hewett told Steam Railway: “We very much hope that the young but fast-growing HSNGR might be considered suitable custodians for this very valuable artefact. We are conscious of the work that the
NRM has put into the locomotive and would like now to see it in its natural habitat of an English threefoot gauge railway.”
The ex-ironstone quarries locomotive was inducted into the National Collection in 2008 as part of the museum’s proposed NRM+ initiative, “which included a display on railway construction. As a typical late 19th-century and early 20th-century contractor’s type locomotive, Handyman was felt at the time to be appropriate for the project,” explained the NRM spokesman.
Cosmetic restoration, which “included basic rust removal, painting in primer and sourcing a new chimney” was started, but work ceased “a number of years ago when the museum’s Tuesday night volunteer sessions ended. It was already apparent that it was not a future display priority by then and the project had no resources to enable it to continue.”
Its future as part of the NRM was further placed in jeopardy
when the NRM+ initiative was abandoned; “without this additional focus on industrial railways from this period, Handyman’s purpose at the museum was already covered by the similar, although standard gauge, industrial locomotive Bauxite. Handyman was originally intended to be restored for display to complement Bauxite, which is preserved but not restored.”
Handyman is the seventh steam locomotive to be deaccessioned by the NRM, following Nord De Glehn compound 4-6-0 No. 3.628 (1994), RSH 0-4-0ST Eustace Forth (2014), Hunslet ‘Austerity’ King Faisal of Iraq (2016), North Staffordshire Railway ‘New L’ No. 2 (2016), LSWR ‘T3’ No. 563 (2017) and GWR Churchward ‘28XX’ No. 2818 (2018).