Railway Bylines – Chasewater Connections

Railway Bylines 

Chasewater Connections

The ever-observant Barry Bull spotted a number of Chasewater Railway connections in the latest (August 2015) edition of Railway Bylines:

Perusal of some of the monthly issues of the mainstream railway enthusiasts magazines often reveals references and photographs of locomotives and items of rolling stock with Chasewater Railway connections, unusually, however, the current ‘Railway Bylines’, volume 20, issue 9 contains maybe more of interest to Chasewater Railway members than may be obvious at a quick glance.

Firstly, the front cover (above) depicts a scene in the shed yard at Littleton Colliery during October 1964.  To the left of the photo is the 16 ton ex-GWR brake van which came to Chasewater three years later for the princely sum of £5.

Going through the magazine there is an article on Washington Chemicals, County Durham; the article begins on page 418 and includes photographs of some of the locos which worked there.  Two of the early locos which worked there were transferred to a sister company at Trafford Park, Manchester, one being Hawthorn Leslie 0-4-0ST, 2780 of 1909.  After 35 years at Trafford Park and by now named ‘Asbestos’ the loco arrived at Chasewater in 1968, a gift from  her owners.Asbestos at Trafford Park on donation day, 1968.

The pages following showing photos of locos at Chatham Dockyard include two shots of the Barclay 0-4-0ST, 2220 of 1946.  Entering preservation initially on the Severn Valley Railway at Bridgnorth, a private sale saw the loco at Chasewater for many years, working regularly between 1976 and 1982.

Finally, and only a tenuous connection with Chasewater, the Peckett 0-4-0ST, 1879 of 1934 found on pages 438 and 439 in photos taken at Basford Gasworks did, on scrapping, yield its buffers to Barclay 1223, Colin McAndrew when first restored by Society members in the late 1960s.  The loco’s own dumb buffers were deemed unsuitable and were replaced with these acquired Pecket buffers bolted upside down so that you couldn’t read the maker’s name quite so easily!

Colin McAndrew at Hixon in 1968.