Scan of a slide taken 05/09/92; once you get involved as a volunteer your photographic opportunities can become limited, hence the preponderance of snaps taken I took back in the day at Tenterden, especially from the C&W side of the tracks. However, the remote Wittersham Road Station was a favourite spot of mine. Therefore, although the sky has gone a bit weird in the scanning process, I'm happy to find these slides of one of the 'Shoeburyness Twins' at Wittersham back in 1992.
K&ESR No 23 and No. 24 were built by Hunslet for the Army after the war. Their works numbers are 3791 (built 1952) and No 3800 (built 1953) respectively . Both were stored initially at the Longmoor Military Railway. The WD logbook for No. 23, pictured here, shows it was put into service at Bicester in 1956 as WD 191 Black Knight, generally repaired in 1957/58, stored in May 1962 at No. 1 Engineers Supply Depot, Long Marston, before final transfer in December 1967 to No. 1 Railway Group, Royal Corps of Transport at Shoeburyness. There it worked for only nine months before again being put into store. From Shoeburyness it was sold out of Army use, arriving at Rolvenden in 1972 and entering service in August 1974. In 1977 Dr. John Coiley, then Curator of the National Railway Museum, named the loco 'Holman F. Stephens' after the K&ESR's engineer and first Managing Director.
Scan of a slide taken 05/09/92; it looks as though the carmine and cream set was by and large complete by 1992, although ther is one brown and cream carriage ('Diana'?) in the set.. The carriage behind the loco is 'Petros' and below are notes I have previously written about this vehicle:
Before my time in C&W (I was still chasing a football around the Purley Way on Sundays at that time) a group of volunteers in the K&ESR C&W Department came up with the ground breaking idea of marking the 1982 'Year of the Disabled' by converting a coach to be suitable for use by the disabled. It was an idea that the then BR Chair Sir Peter Parker was fully behind; his response to a letter from C&W member Dave Sinclair (whom oddly I don’t recall ever meeting) requesting a suitable vehicle for purchase, led to BR donating BR Mark One E9254. Built in 1956, E9254 had been withdrawn in 1981 and was in store at Llandudno Junction and was moved to Stewarts Lane where the conversion was undertaken by BR Apprentices. This involved removing all the seating, converting the Guard’s compartment to be a toilet compartment (without a toilet at that stage), removal of internal partitioning and adding internal panelling with mahogany faced plywood.
By May the vehicle was ready to leave Stewarts Lane and Class 73 No. 73-110 hauled it to Tonbridge as part of a test run for ADS 228, an ex-L&SWR coach that was part of the Wimbledon breakdown train. The Mark One was shunted into position by the Tonbridge pilot loco, Class 09 No. 09-022 (how different the national network was in those days) to be loaded on a low loader for the last part of its journey. The coach was numbered No. 75 in the K&ESR fleet and named ‘Petros’, honouring both Sir Peter Parker’s assistance and Peter Sinclair, Dave Sinclair’s disabled son. In June 1982 ‘Petros’ was commissioned into service by the Lord Warden of the Cingue Ports, the Queen Mother. After what was one of the high days of the preserved K&ESR’s history some snagging work saw the toilet plumbed in, the carriage carpeted throughout and a PA system added to provide commentary for blind passengers..
In 1986 the brake was reinstated and ‘Petros; became the brake vehicle in the brown and cream Mark One set. Subsequently, as the K&ESR slipped further from projecting the light railway image that was once its USP, the vehicle has run in carmine and cream and now green.
Scan of a slide taken 05/09/92; Despite the vagaries of both the quality of the original slide and the scanning process, hopefully this snap goes some away to explaining why Wittersham Road was one of my favourite spots along the line. K&ESR Austerity 0-6-0ST No. 23 'Holman F Stephens' simmers at Wittersham Road.
Scan of a slide taken 04/07/92: No. 24 was built by Hunslet (Works No. 3800 of 1953) for the Army and was initially stored at Longmoor. Numbered WD200 and Army 100, the loco saw service at Bicester before transfer back to Longmoor and then moved to Shoeburyness, from where it was purchased in 1971 for use on the K&ESR . Entering service in 1977, No. 24 was named 'William H. Austen' in honour of the second Managing Director of the K&ESR (sister K&ESR Shoeburynesss Austerity No. 23 carries the name 'Holman F Stephens'). Indeed when I first started to visit the K&ESR in circa 1982, one or other of No. 23 or 24, in their dull green livery, were familar sites at the head of a rake of brown and cream carriages. Withdrawn in the winter of 1988/9 the loco was overhauled returning to service a year later in a "...striking livery of maroon and yellow and black lining" to quote from Tenterden Terrier No. 50.
Tags: K&ESR Kent and Esat Sussex Railway K&ESR No. 24 Wittersham Road Austerity
Scan of a slide taken 04/07/92: There will be other opportunities to recount 'Linda's' history as and when I get around to uploading further pictures. So for now a look at what happened next. Some time after the picture was taken both the photographer and loco would eventually move west. In my case it was to Dorset, whereas 'Linda' only made it as far as Hampshire. However, apart from adopting a grey livery I am substantially unchanged. More dramatic changes awaited 'Linda' as she was rebuilt at the Mid-Hants Railway as Isle of Sodor No. 1 'Thomas', as the attached demonstrates:.
www.flickr.com/photos/50576141@N03/6362395175/in/photostream
Tags: Kent and East Sussex Railway Northiam K&ESR K&ESR No. 26 Linda