Andrew Goodman's Austerity 0-6-0ST makes its debut at the 2007 Christmas Cracker gala event. The engine turned a wheel for the first time since 1970 in December, still wearing a brown primer, on to which the Wemyss Private Railway's striking two-tone, fully lined out brown livery, complete with its WPR number 15, was to be applied. The very extensive overhaul of No. 15 included very substantial boiler and firebox repairs while the engine has been equipped with both vacuum and air braking systems, in addition to its standard steam brake.

Nearly 500 of these extraordinarily successful engines were built between 1943 and 1964 and it is believed that around 70 still survive - many having been restored for work on heritage railways.

The Austerity design was developed for the Ministry of Supply by Robert A Riddles in conjunction with the Hunslet Engine Company of Leeds.  At the time, the Railway Magazine reported that: "The Ministry of Supply has recently placed orders ... for a number of 0-6-0 saddle tank engines to a simple and robust design based by the Ministry on a standard shunter of a well-known locomotive building firm."  This was typical of the cloak of secrecy surrounding military procurement but the firm in question was Hunslet.  Riddles' design was based on Hunslet's '50550' standard 18 x 26-inch inside-cylinder engine.  The main visual difference was the cab and larger coal bunker although there were detail mechanical improvements and an all-steel boiler with a copper firebox.

A triumph of robustness

The considerable power (class 4F in British Railways terminology) of these engines; their free-steaming boiler; simple maintenance and robust and forgiving design made them ideal for military service and the sometimes very questionable track they were expected to cope with.

These qualities also made them suitable for industrial service where high power was needed over relatively short distances.  Construction continued after the war and while military examples found themselves sold to railways in many European and North African countries, new and ex-military examples were becoming the ubiquitous shunting locomotive for collieries, steel works and other industrial applications. In addition, 75 were sold to the London & North Eastern Railway becoming class J94, many surviving almost to the end of British Railways steam, the last being withdrawn from the legendary Cromford & High Peak line in 1967.

Various modifications were carried out to the class and several were equipped with such innovations as underfeed mechanical stokers and gas-producer systems (little more than a heat-haze escaping from the particularly ugly tapered chimney), Geisel multiple blast ejectors (these being particularly successful at improving fuel economy), air and vacuum braking, electric lighting and so forth.

In all, 485 Austerity 0-6-0STs were completed, the last example being built by Hunslet in 1964.  They continued to provide sterling service to industry (particularly in the National Coal Board) in dwindling numbers until the 1980s when the last of them was withdrawn.

Number 15

While most of the 'Austerities' were built by Hunslet, their designer, the firm sub-contracted construction to several manufacturers in order to meet wartime demand, including Bagnall, Hudswell Clarke, Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns, Vulcan Foundry and Andrew Barclay. No. 15 is one of 13 built by the latter manufacturer. It was turned out as works number 2183 of 1943 and delivered new to the War Department (later Ministry of Defence) for use at the General Stores sub-depot at Steventon in Oxfordshire.  It entered service as no. 71529, later being sold to EG Steels of Hamilton in Scotland following an overhaul which took place at, of all places, Swindon works - the engine travelling there along the Great Western main line under its own steam.

In 1964 it went on to the Wemyss Private Railway in Fife, Scotland, a network that served several collieries, where it was re-numbered 15. The engine was again overhauled, this time by its manufacturer in Kilmarnock in 1970, but worked for only six months before being withdrawn from service as the collieries served by the railway were being closed. There then followed a 30 year sojourn while the engine quietly rusted at Thomas Muir's scrapyard before being purchased by Andrew Goodman in 2003.

After purchase, no. 15 moved to Warwickshire for overhaul. Steady progress was made as illustrated by the photographs although considerably more work was needed on the boiler than might have been expected by an engine that had given only six months' work after its previous overhaul, even though thirty years were spent languishing in a scrapyard.  During overhaul, the decision was taken to equip the engine to work both air and vacuum-braked trains, using two separate systems.  The pump for the air brake system is located under the running board on the left-hand side, rather than the more usual tactic of cutting away part of the saddle tank (and thus reducing water carrying capacity) to accommodate the equipment on the side of the smokebox.

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