LOCO PROFILE

Farewell to the African Queen As the Welshpool & Llanfair Railway’s Hunslet no 85 goes out of service, Andrew Charman profiles a familiar and favourite locomotive.

April 17th was a special day in the long history of the Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway, a day of celebration for members of the company but for the majority one tinged with sadness. A members’ special train marked the finale for Hunslet 2-6-2 of 1954 no 85 – a stalwart of the line, one of the most familiar locos amongst UK narrow gauge enthusiasts, and the favourite of many a W&LLR footplate crew.

On this Spring Saturday no 85’s 10-year boiler ticket expired. Usually this means an overhaul, a retube or a new boiler. No 85 requires the latter, and as a result it may be some time before this engine steams again.

No 85, the 14th locomotive in the W&LLR fleet and never named, has now spent more time preserved in Mid-Wales than working where it was built for in Africa. The engine was the last of 32 built for the Sierra Leone Government Railways to a standard design by Hunslet. The similarities between it and another famous Hunslet 2-6-2, the Welsh Highland’s ‘Russell’ are obvious, and it has often been erroneously assumed that the Russell design – the loco built in 1906 – influenced that of no 85. In fact it was the reverse, as Hunslet built the first Sierra Leone 2-6-2 in 1898 and the hardware below footplate level was directly incorporated in the Russell design.

Completed in 1954 as works number 3815, no 85 was delivered to the Sierra Leone port and capital of Freetown with sister engine no 84, the pair costing £21,273. They were set to work on the extensive Sierra Leone Railway (SLR), which had a main line extending 227.5 miles and a 104-mile long branch.

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By the time 85 arrived, the Hunslet 2-6-2s were confined mainly to shunting and banking heavy trains out of Freetown hauled by larger engines including Garratts. The loco’s working life was to be short. The Sierra Leone system was in decline, finally closing completely in 1974. The scrapmen quickly moved in…

Salvation for no 85 came in the form of the Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway, which was in search of not new motive power but coaching stock. The W&LLR was beginning its extension back to Welshpool, and the preservationists mindful of the need for stock with vacuum brakes on the steep 1 in 29 Golfa bank. Four serviceable bogie carriages in Sierra Leone, at the time just 14 years old having been built by the Gloucester Carriage & Wagon Co in 1961, appeared to suit the bill. Also at the Fisher Lane shed was

Above: No 85 on its final weekend of public service, with the African Train. Photo: James Waite. Below: No 85 is steamed at Fisher Lane Shed, Sierra Leone prior to preservation. Photo: courtesy W&LLR.

the out-of-use no 85. After a test steaming, and with funds provided by two W&LLR members, a deal was struck with the Lebanese scrapmen.

On 7th August 1975, following a two-week 3000-mile voyage from Freetown, a complete African train arrived at Liverpool, no 85 returning to the same port where it had departed for Africa just 21 years earlier. By the end of the day the loco had been unloaded at Llanfair Caereinion station on the W&LLR.

Remarkably no 85 was able to be

LOCO FACTS: Built by: Hunslet Engine

Co, Leeds Date built: 1954 Gauge: 762mm/2ft 6in Wheel Arr: 2-6-2T Weight: 21.5 ton trial-steamed three days later, and for a while the loco was used with its carriages, which boasted ‘Grondana’ centre couplings quite unlike others on the W&LLR. These proved so effective that the line’s entire stock was soon converted to use Grondanas, the line acquiring as many as it could from Sierra

No 69 – NARROW GAUGE WORLD