Bodiam 2001? by Gerald Sviour

A Kent & East Sussex Railway Terrier visits Lancashire
First published in issue 80 of The Tenterden Terrier Winter 1999
Reproduced with permission of then-editor Mr P D Shaw

At the end of a cobbled street in a former cotton spinning town ten miles north of Manchester stands a most impressive monument to the age of the steam locomotive. This is the East Lancashire Locomotive Works at Bury, owned by Riley and Son Engineering Ltd and devoted to the overhaul of preserved steam engines. The building dates from the mid-C19th and in time has been both a steam locomotive works and a maintenance depot for electric multiple units. It has now reverted to the former and a walk into its vast erecting shop brings back vivid memories of Crewe, Derby, Eastleigh and other great railway works in the 1950s.

Holding its place alongside the unique Standard Pacific No.71000 “Duke of Gloucester”, Battle of Britain Pacific No.34067 “Tangmere”, the Great Western’s “Nunnery Castle” and many others, is a representative of the K&ESR. This is the LB&SCR Terrier purchased in 1901 to become No.3 “Bodiam” of the Rother Valley Railway. It worked for most of its life on the K&ESR, becoming No.32670 after nationalisation. On withdrawal it was bought by the Wheele brothers and returned to Rolvenden to work in the early days of preservation. At the end of 1985 the boiler was life expired and the engine was partially dismantled to await an overhaul.

With no money available, the derelict, boilerless chassis became a sad sight around the railway for over ten years. Feeling that this was no way to treat our most historic engine and one of the few survivors of the Colonel Stephens railways, the Terrier Trust was set up in 1995 to raise funds to get No.3 back into service. The first objective was to buy the engine, to ensure that it stayed for ever on the K&ESR. This was achieved in 1996, the Trust and the Tenterden Railway Company providing the £40 000 required and becoming joint owners. A new boiler was ordered and paid for by the TRC; the Trust undertaking to finance the overhaul of the chassis.

Because of the pressure of work at Rolvenden it was decided to send the engine to Bury, where Ian Riley Engineering had built a good reputation for the quality of their work. Rebuilding is now proceeding steadily. The frame has been strengthened and straightened, the wheels re-tyred and re-profiled, the cylinders bored and re-lined and the axle boxes white metalled, so the engine will soon become a rolling chassis again.   A new cab and bunker is to be fabricated using as much of the original as possible.