Swanage Railway News Gallery - Page 14Southern Locomotives acquire Sidmouth and Austerity - S KerleyReport and photographs by S Kerley and APM Wright 30th March 1998Southern Locomotives Ltd - one of the country’s most vigorous steam locomotive restorers - has acquired two more engines, including the last remaining and available unrestored Bulleid Pacific.Note: Illustrations will be provided here when available - Keith The additions - rebuilt West Country No. 34010 Sidmouth from the North York Moors Railway and an Austerity 0-6-0 saddle tank from the Midland Railway centre at Butterley in Derbyshire - now takes Southern Locomotives Ltd’s stable of steam locomotives up to nine. "It was too good an opportunity to miss. Sidmouth comes with a fair quantity of parts, some useable and some not," said Southern Locomotives Ltd spokesman Steve Kerley. It is hoped to move Sidmouth down to Southern Locomotives Ltd’s Sellindge base near Ashford in Kent by the middle of the summer. Sidmouth was built for the Southern Railway in 1945 as air-smoothed No. 210110 and rebuilt in 1959 before being withdrawn from British Railways service in 1965. The second locomotive - an Austerity 0-6-0 saddle tank - is of a type known as J94s on the LNER. Acquired from Norman Taylor, National Coal Board No. 27 will be moved to Sellindge as soon as possible. The intention is to bring the locomotive back into working order as BR No. 68068 in a livery of BR unlined black. The locomotive was built during the Second World War and worked in Holland and Belgium as the Allies fought eastwards into the very heart of Germany. After the war, it returned to this country and worked for the National Coal Board in whose ownership it last steamed. After its last run with the National Coal Board, the Austerity was purchased by the Kent and East Sussex Railway along with several other sisters. But it never steamed in preservation. "The Austerity is in need of its ten year overhaul and does need some major platework", said Steve Kerley. "There is a fair amount of work to be done. She needs to be stripped down but the locomotive is all greased up", he added. After restoration, this useful locomotive will be hired out to smaller preserved steam railways. Enquiries to Steve Kerley on (01202) 772894. 
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