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Last steam locomotive built for British Railways


Mr Brunel

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Hello all,

 

A thought occurs to me: No. 92220 Evening Star (built in March 1960) is usually considered the final steam locomotive built for British Railways. However, I recently found that 'WC' No. 34104 Bere Alston was rebuilt at Eastleigh in 1961 (the last Bulleid Pacific to undergo the process).

 

So - could it be argued that Bere Alston was in fact the last BR steam locomotive built? I suppose this would depend on whether you define the rebuilding of the Bulleid Pacifics as genuine rebuilding or a case of building new locomotives while incorporating existing components.

 

I look forward to getting some opinions...

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Hello all,

 

A thought occurs to me: No. 92220 Evening Star (built in March 1960) is usually considered the final steam locomotive built for British Railways. However, I recently found that 'WC' No. 34104 Bere Alston was rebuilt at Eastleigh in 1961 (the last Bulleid Pacific to undergo the process).

 

So - could it be argued that Bere Alston was in fact the last BR steam locomotive built? I suppose this would depend on whether you define the rebuilding of the Bulleid Pacifics as genuine rebuilding or a case of building new locomotives while incorporating existing components.

 

I look forward to getting some opinions...

 

I don't think so. The rebuild really just took the cladding off and replaced the valve gear. 

 

Ed

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To be fair, many of the 'rebuilds' that railways produced in earlier times (and the GWR was particularly guilty here) were rebuilds only in accountancy terms – that is to say that the only thing reused was the number. But the Bulleid pacific were much less drastic than that as edcayton says.

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