Former Wemyss Private Railway Austerity 0-6-0ST no. 15, to be named Earl David on Sunday 24th May. (Paul Stratford)

Now here is a rare occurrence - the naming of a steam locomotive!

But you can witness just that at Toddington Station during the Cotswold Festival of Steam, on Sunday 24th May at 3pm at Toddington station.

The occasion is the naming of Andrew Goodman's Andrew Barclay 'Austerity' 0-6-0ST no. 15 (works no. 2183 of 1943).  The locomotive will be named 'Earl David' after the 12th Earl of Wemyss by the present, 13th Earl. 

There is a special reason for the Earl to perform the naming ceremony, quite apart from the fact that he lives nearby at Stanway House, which is famous for its water gardens and spectacular gravity-fed fountain. The family farms much of the land on the Cotswold side of the railway at Toddington including the field often used as an overflow car park (for instance, during the Cotswold Festival of Steam).

The much more intriguing link is that the locomotive was once owned by David, the 12th Earl of Wemyss and it operated on an extensive mineral railway in Scotland, called the Wemyss Private Railway.

The Wemyss Private Railway

Since the 1430s, coal was mined on the Wemyss estate in Fife, Scotland.  The Earldom of Wemyss was granted in the Peerage of Scotland in 1633, and a charter was granted to David, the 2nd Earl, by Charles II to construct a harbour at Methil for the shipment of coal mined on the estate.  Thus started the systematic extraction of coal from the considerable deposits both under the estate and beneath Firth of Forth. 

Towards the end of the 19th century plans were drawn up for what was to become the Wemyss & Buckhaven Railway, later Wemyss Private Railway (WPR) as a more reliable method of moving coal to the harbour than the service then provided by the North British Railway.  The WPR served several collieries including the Michael deep mine which was the most productive colliery in Scotland, extracting over 1m tons of coal per year until a disastrous fire closed it in 1967.  That signalled the rapid decline of the railway and it closed some 70 years after it opened.

During the 1960s the railway operated large fleet of 0-6-0T and 0-6-0ST locomotives including no. 15, which in 1964 was acquired from the E G Steels of Hamilton (who in turn bought it from the Ministry of Defence).  It was built by Andrew Barclay of Kilmarnock and was overhauled while in the WPR's ownership by its maker, but then did little work before withdrawal in 1971 on closure of the railway. 

No. 15 is one of nearly 500 similar locomotives designed by Hunslet for wartime use but produced by a number of locomotive builders, including Andrew Barclay who built just 13. 

The naming ceremony on 24th May acknowledges not only David, the present Earl's father, but David, the 2nd Earl - arguably the father of the Wemyss coal mining estate in Scotland.  It also marks the part played by the Wemyss Private Railway in shifting millions of tons of coal over 70 years.  No. 15 will proudly bear the name Earl David in recognition of a colourful chapter in both mining and railway history.

You can read a feature about the Austerity 0-6-0STs and no. 15 in particular by clicking here.

Sources: Wikipedia; The Wemyss Private Railway (A W Brotchie, Oakwood Press)