Horwich works Shunters

[The RandWRA]

Regarding the narrow gauge system within Horwich Works, I have a photograph of one of the engines apparently being cannibalised. There is no saddletank and the boiler door is off it's hinges. There is a number DM153 chalked or painted onto the boiler. Can anybody shed any light on what this might mean? Thank You.

[Steamport Southport]

Could that be it's Departmental number?

 

DM was usually Departmental Midland Region on wagons and carriages.

 

Just like the SR USA Tanks that ended up in Departmental service got DS numbers.

 

https://www.rail-online.co.uk/p597862420/h96C81E7F#h96c81e7f

 

 

 

Jason

[brack]

The two diesels had ZM numbers (the hudswell, Crewe, was ZM9 and the Ruston ZM32).

[Nearholmer]

The number on the boiler might be a departmental number, or the number of the boiler in a register, or the job number for whatever work was being done to it.

 

I don’t have the reference to hand, but certainly some BR narrow gauge locos were numbered/registered as “plant and machinery”, rather like, say, dumper trucks, or construction monorails, rather than “traction and rolling stock”, which may be where the ZM comes from, although the Horwich locos were probably on The Works register, rather than Civil Engineering or Outdoor Machinery Department registers, which is where some of the other narrow gauge locos were recorded.