Geoff Silcock of Sentimental Journeys has reported that at around 5pm on Friday 20th May, the new numberplate and shedplate were fitted to the reliveried “Martello” at Loughborough on the Great Central Railway, officially completing the change to 32662 in readiness for the forthcoming 50th anniversary celebrations.

Sunday June 11th 1961 witnessed a special rail tour organised by The Locomotive Club of Great Britain that would be the last passenger train intended to run over two branch lines in the Kentish Weald; Paddock Wood to Hawkhurst and the remainder of the old Kent & East Sussex Railway.  Both lines were to close the following day.

Whilst the former continues to inexorably slowly fade back into the Wealden countryside, the latter, as we all know, survived thanks to a preservation society which was also formed in 1961.  It would be 13 years before the first trains started running again from Tenterden Town; after a series of extensions, services eventually reached Bodiam in 2000.

On Saturday June 11th, today’s Kent & East Sussex Railway will pay tribute to those earlier pioneers, some of whom were still schoolboys at the time and most of whom are now pensioners, using the same two “Terrier” locomotives that worked that last train in 1961.

32662 is intended to feature at the Tenterden end of the special train.  Although never a K&ESR regular, she was so highly regarded in her early days at New Cross in the late C19th that she was the regular locomotive on the London Bridge portion of the Down Newhaven Continental as far as East Croydon.

Starring at the Bodiam end should be 32670; it should also be noted that this year is the 110th anniversary of her purchase from the LB&SCR.  32678 is also scheduled to be in service, making the occasion the first in preservation history to witness three black Terriers.  Perhaps for some attendees it will also bring back memories of the Hayling Island branch.

There are some other strange coincidences for the event, described by Terrier Trust Secretary Hugh Nightingale as “a book-end event for a lot of people” and going on to say:  “The numbers of the locomotives differ by eight, the Chinese lucky number,   32678 reaches the centenary as the joint-first Terrier to be rebuilt as a Class A1X this coming November, and the 50 theme recurs as the total number of Terriers built at Brighton between 1872 and 1880”.

And as Geoff Silcock pointed out, it has taken something like 50 people to realise the ambition of this commemoration with BR black liveried Terriers.

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