Statfold Barn – inside the Roundhouse.
As so many of its occupants are out on the line the roundhouse is half empty, which means there is plenty of room to admire and photograph the remaining fascinating tenants.
There is nothing like Statfold, this year there were sixteen engines in steam – so wherever you stood, wherever you waited there was always something going one – a great sense of highly-organised activity and a terrific atmosphere. This post is simply a catalogue of those sixteen engines (or would be – unfortunately I only have pictures of fifteen of them and am wondering which one eluded me). There is plenty of amazing static stuff to see as well, including the workshops with work in progress, displays of railwayana and the breathtaking line-up of non-operational traction in the roundhouse. Last year I meant to post a second helping of Statfold pictures, but other pressures prevailed. With luck I’ll do better this year.
Here are the engines, every one of them faultlessly turned out and in fine order.
Alpha with the goods train.
Hudswell Clarke, 1922
The lovely Fiji, emitting a cloud of filth, despite the fact that she is running in reverse down the gradient.
Lautoka No 11, Hudswell Clarke, 1912.
Howard heads out of the station with a passenger train.
Hunslet, 1936
The other Howard has a vertical boiler and shares the smaller garden circuit with Roger. This Howard is also a new build, dating from 2007 but incorporating older parts, so I don’t know whether she or Jack Lane counts as the youngest locomotive here.
Wilbrighton Wagon Works, 2007
Isibutu takes the station avoiding line, while Lautoka No 19 reverses past the signal box.
Isibutu : Bagnall, 1945.
Jack Lane, the other Statfold new build, and arguably the youngest locomotive here, stands outside the running shed. Note that Jack Lane was not some railway worthy, but the street in Leeds where the original Hunslet works stood.
Hunslet, 2005 No 3904.
Lautoka No 19 waits in the station with the goods train.
Hudswell Clarke, 1914.
Liassic gleaming outside the running shed. That’s Jack Lane behind.
Peckett, 1923.
Marchlyn, from the footbridge.
Avonside, 1933.
Minas de Aller No 2 backs through the running shed. The locomotive on the right was not in steam and I did not make a note of her name. No 2 has a complex valve gear, lost in this picture. A close-up follows.
Corpet, 1884.
Minas de Aller No 2 has Brown’s valve gear and indirect drive to the coupled wheels via a rocker arm.
Roger and the vertical boiler Howard serve the smaller garden circuit.
Kerr, Stuart and Company, 1918
Ryam No 1, assisted by – I think – Statfold, storms the gradient to the station.
Davenport, 1917.
No apologies for including another picture of this magnificent American locomotive.
Davenport, 1917.
Saccharine emerges from the avoiding line.
Fowler, 1912.
Sragi No 1 outside the running shed, waiting to be called forward,
Krauss, 1899.
Statfold is a new build locomotive, the work of the Statfold Barn Engineering Shop. As the railway’s owner bought the Hunslet Engine Company the Statfold-built engines are genuine Hunslets with a continuity of works numbers.
Hunslet, 2005 No 3903.