‘Pug’ on course for Lancashire & Yorkshire celebrations
THE Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Trust’s (L&YRT) ‘Pug’ 0-40ST No. 19 is expected to return to steam by Easter, enabling it to take part in events to celebrate the centenary of the merger of the London & North Western and the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway companies.
The 1910-built loco is under contract overhaul by the East Lancashire Railway (ELR).
The frames are now reunited with wheels, motion and brake gear. Boiler work, which includes retubing, is approaching completion. The smokebox is now on the front of the loco and a new smokebox saddle has been manufactured at Bury. A new saddle tank is on order after the original was found to be beyond repair.
As for the livery, with No. 19 having been withdrawn from main line service as No. 11243 by LMS in 1931, it is set to return in lined LYR guise with brass numberplates on cab.
The prospect of a gathering of LYR locomotives has been mooted at the ELR, although the idea remains at an early stage. Under consideration is the possibility of locos carrying BR livery during the first part of the year and then their respective LYR guises.
The L&YRT’s Aspinall ‘23’ class 0-6-0ST No. 752 is due to visit the Spa Valley Railway in early January in its non-authentic BR livery as No. 51456. It is expected to operate over the weekend of January 8/9 and it could run on additional days. L&YRT has confirmed the loco is to go into lined LYR livery in the coming year.
Meanwhile, repainting Keighley & Worth Valley Railway-based Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway 0-6-0 No. 957 ‘The Green Dragon’ into black in readiness for the celebrations in the year ahead has started with the frames and wheels. As previously reported, the loco returned to steam in summer 2021 in the fictional Great Northern & Southern Railway green livery it carried when it appeared in the 1970 film The Railway Children.