Correspondence
The Third Terrier by Peter Cooper

First published in issue 50 of The Tenterden Terrier Winter 1989
Reproduced with permission of present editor Mr P D Shaw

Sir – I was interested to read your article on No.32678 (i.e. by Neil Rose) in issue 48, and wonder if I can add a few details.

According to the LB&SCR loco registers, No.78 on leaving New Cross in the early 1880s was briefly at Brighton and then stayed at Tunbridge Wells from approximately 1884-1891; then briefly to Littlehampton, and on to Brighton from about 1893-1899, going to Portsmouth (Fratton) around the turn of the century, and back to Brighton for a few years from about 1903. After that it was as quoted mostly at Horsham, but at Littlehampton from about 1915-1918. Incidentally, another register shows No.678 as running no mileage at all in 1911, just before conversion to A1X!

No.78 was transferred to the LB&SCR duplicate list in June 1905, and was subsequently renumbered 678, in June 1907. It is a mistake to suggest that transfer for the duplicate list, and renumbering in the 600 series, were part of the same process; they were separate processes. No.678 was in store at Preston Park from 1926-1929 having been recorded as withdrawn in 1925 – indeed the LB&SCR register (sic) even says “scrapped in 1925”! At the overhaul preceding transfer to the Isle of Wight in 1929, the loco received a Marsh chimney, replacing the Stroudley pattern and 14” cylinders, which I believe she still retains; thus No.32678 will be the K&ESR’s strongest Terrier. The present Drummond chimney was fitted on the Isle of Wight, at or about the same time as the loco was renumbered W14 – approximately October 1932.