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American made locomotives in Britain


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Is there a complete list of all American made locomotives purchased by UK railways to be found somewhere? There must be more than Midland Moguls and Dock Tanks, surely? All help and guidance will be most appreciated.

 

Regards,

 

Stefan

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The Great Central and Great Northern also had 2-6-0s, and a couple of South Wales railways had tank engines. There's a pretty comprehensive article on the Port Talbot Railway's Cooke 0-8-2Ts in an early Railway Archive and another railway had some 0-6-2Ts - possibly the Barry?

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Industrial users included;

 

Alfred Hickmans Springvale Steelworks (the works later known as Bilston) which operated a Lima built Shay supplied in 1900.

 

The Steel Company of Wales, at Port Talbot, had five or six Alco S1 switchers supplied in 1949.

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Were the s160s ever "owned" or were they just "borrowed" until shipped to Europe?

JF

Borrowed. Many of those shipped to Britain in preparation for the invasion of Europe were put in service with "British Railways" in theory for "running in" but actually to augment the hard pressed British fleet. These were all shipped to Europe after D-Day along with others shipped to Europe directly from the USA and those that had earlier been shipped directly to N. Africa after operation Torch many of which followed Patton to Europe.

 

About 200 of the  five hundred or so that had gone to France with the USATC were made available to SNCF for its own operations with French crews and 105 of these became SNCF class 140U. They were though never fully integrated into their fleet and in 1946 passed on to other railways once the new 141Rs built for SNCF were available.  I think these were probably just loaned to SNCF rather than being bought and some of them probably worked for longer in the UK than in France. 

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The Longmore Military Railway had a pair of Whitcome diesels. These were from the batch supplied to the British authorities in North Africa in about 1942. Those that came to the UK for D-Day were a slightly more powerful version. The rest of the initial batch went to Italy.

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Haven't I seen a picture of a Midland Railway Baldwin 2-6-0 recently, or did I dream it?

 

It might have been in the collection of Percy Pilcher photos published by the LNWR Society.

There is a quite common postcard view of one in traffic - so possibly that?

 

Incidentally didn't the LMR (Longmoor) have an S160 permanently in its fleet at one time?

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I think it was Gordon the blue 2-10-0 that now lives at the Severn Valley Railway.

The funny thing with Longmoor was you could just wander around until the Red ######'s bothered to throw you out.

In addition to the 2-10-0 (and Dean Goods etc) Bob, the last one was LMR 701 I think but they also had one numbered 700..

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I'm guessing that the parameters are steam, diesel and electric locomotives in service on main-line, secondary or industrial railways prior to the preservation era (otherwise various later Baldwin imports would need to be included).

 

Here are a couple of additions:

 

Former WWI locomotives have been mentioned already, but we shouldn't forget "Mountaineer" on the Ffestiniog (built by Alco).

 

The Alco S1 BoBoDE switchers supplied to Steel Co. of Wales have been mentioned elsewhere on this site*.

 

*Edit: Also further up this thread!

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There is a quite common postcard view of one in traffic - so possibly that?

 

Incidentally didn't the LMR (Longmoor) have an S160 permanently in its fleet at one time?

Nein, 'Franklin D. Roosevelt' was painted in LMR livery while in preservation as 'No. 701', but it was not part of LMR stock.

 

AFAIK there were 2 WD 2-10-0s and one WD 2-8-0 stationed there.

 

There is a list of LMR locos to be found on the wiki page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longmoor_Military_Railway#Locomotives

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There was also a Baldwin 0-4-0 saddle tank on the Clee Hill railway in Shropshire pre Second World War.

 

Gordon A

Bristol

Yes, one from the batch built for the ROD in WWI.  Another went to the Melbourne Military Railway (via Belgium and Egypt) and a third spent some time at Tilbury Docks, Wakefield Wireworks and Northwestern Gas

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Nein, 'Franklin D. Roosevelt' was painted in LMR livery while in preservation as 'No. 701', but it was not part of LMR stock.

 

AFAIK there were 2 WD 2-10-0s and one WD 2-8-0 stationed there.

 

There is a list of LMR locos to be found on the wiki page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longmoor_Military_Railway#Locomotives

WD 700, an S160, was present on the LMR at various times  being photographed on shed at Longmoor in August 1947; carrying its WD nameplate when shopped at Bagnalls in 1954; and was in steam at the LMR in September 1955 (assuming photos on the 'net are correctly dated?) - so maybe it outlasted 701 in WD ownership rather than the other way round?  It would appear from the Industrial railway record to have been Alco 71512 of January 1944 and it seems to have also had another Army number - 93257 and had been transferred to the British Army from the US Army Transportation Corps at some time prior to 1947.

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I do beg your pardon, you are right, as seen in this link:

http://www.railalbum.co.uk/steam-locomotives/usatc-s160-2.htm

 

Makes sense that FDR was numbered 701 then - I was told it was never an LMR loco but rather painted as a tribute.

The preserved one which has been painted as LMR 701 was not that loco in real life (it's a preservationist's import - from Greece).  What I can't ascertain is how long 701 lasted on the LMR but it doesn't seem to feature in any 1950s information which suggests that it was either sent elsewhere or possibly scrapped nor can I find out anything about the fate of LMR 700.

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I'll probably get lynched but Ray Clasper of the Wakefield club has made lovely models of both the Midland Baldwin and the Schenectady 2-6-0's.  The Baldwin used to haul the 'cattle train' on Long Preston as we had a photo of one on shed at Lancaster prior to WW1.   All being well it will run again on Green Ayre.   However I'm not sure that models of American imports count.

 

Jamie

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