Hirings and Firings by Stephen Garrett

Kent & East Sussex Locomotives in the Thirties and Forties
First published in issue 29 of The Tenterden Terrier Winter 1982
Reproduced with permission of present editor Mr P D Shaw

A considerable collection of papers and memorabilia relating to the Colonel Stephens railways was retained by the Colonel’s successor, Mr W H Austen, when the Tonbridge office from which these lines were run was closed. These papers were passed to his son, William H Austen, whose death was reported in our Winter edition and have generously been made available to the Tenterden Railway Company. Many hitherto unknown details of the Stephens railways have come to light as a result and it is hoped to make these available in forthcoming editions of The Tenterden Terrier. This article deals with details drawn from a register headed ‘Steam Train Mileage Commencing 15 August 1932’.

The Register runs from August 1932 to May 1948 and is therefore of particular value in that it covers the Second World War period when security considerations prevented detailed reporting of railway matters and when the Kent & East Sussex had to rely heavily on locomotives hired or lent by the Southern Railway. The Register starts with simple daily statements of the total miles run with no indications of the locomotives involved but acquires additional interest with the entry into service on 01 September 1932 of the newly arrived saddletank No.4 as the daily miles run by this one locomotive are given as a separate sub-total. From 01 July 1933 a further column was added for saddletank No.8, presumably re-entering service after overhaul, and from 27 December 1934 a third column was added for the newly rebuilt Terrier No.3. Locomotives 3, 4 and 8 clearly ran the bulk of the services in 1935 and 1936 as their combined sub-totals usually add up to the total mileage run each day.

No further columns were added until November 1936 when the Kent & East Sussex hired P class tank No.1556 (now our No.11 ‘Pride of Sussex’) for two months and this locomotive’s daily mileage was thought fit to be recorded. With four columns of sub-totals in use the management must have decided that they might as well ‘go the whole hog’ and as from 01 January 1937 daily mileage was given for every locomotive and railcar in use. These figures are summarised in the accompanying table (which has been re-formatted for inclusion in the footnotes) which shows the locomotives in use in each quarterly period from September 1936 to May 1948 (No.2 and the railcars were of course not specified in 1936Q4 in the Register).

As can be seen from the table, only locomotives No.3 and No.4 out of the Kent & East Sussex’s own stock survived to see service during the War. The last dates of operation for the other Kent & East Sussex stock were as follows:

Ford Railcar set 27/08/1937
Shefflex Railcar set 08/03/1938
No.2 Northiam 22/08/1938
No.8 17/03/1939

An incidental aspect of the above dates is that No.2 was the last named locomotive to bear its nameplates in Kent & East Sussex ownership as both No.3 and No.8 had lost their names before returning to service in 1934 and 1933 respectively. Of course it should be remembered that No.2 actually bore two names in it last years of service as it starred as ‘Gladstone’ in the film ‘Oh! Mr Porter’ made on the Basingstoke & Alton Light Railway in 1937.

Locomotive No.3 also appeared on film during the period under review in ‘The Loves of Joanna Godden’ mad on the Lydd branch in 1946. Whereas No.2’s film role was something of a last fling, No.3’s performance was just one incident in a marathon 136300 miles run between December 1934 and May 1948 with more to come under British Railways ownership and eventual preservation. This total mileage is all the more remarkable in that No.3 was out of use from 08 March 1941 to 07 March 1944, the last six months being spent being rebuilt to A1X standards at St Leonard’s. A further absence for overhaul at Brighton took place between April and September 1947.

Almost as creditable performance was put in by No.4 which managed 123159 miles between August 1932 and March 1948. No.4 also had extensive boiler repairs during this period and had its Beyer Peacock boiler replaced by a Drummond-pattern boiler at a date previously believed to have been September 1939. However, the Register shows No.4 to have had only brief absences from duty in September 1939 and the reboilering seems much more likely to have taken place the previous year when No.4 returned to service on 31 August (1938) after a year out of service.

No.4’s mechanical defects in her later years have been well chronicled elsewhere but it survived long enough to see some service for British Railways in January and March 1948 before being laid aside at Headcorn prior to being cut up at Ashford in August of that year. In 1949 a similar fate was to befall its fellow ‘0330’ Class No.3334 at Eastleigh. No.3334 had been hired to the Kent & East Sussex from September 1938 to January 1939 and was the least successful of all the locomotives hired as it travelled no more than 9.5 miles in September and January and 92 miles over two days in November. As 3334 had been in store at Eastleigh since 1933 it is not easy to see why it was thought suitable for resurrection on the Kent & East Sussex in 1938. It has been suggested that it came to Rolvenden on approval with a view to purchase by the Kent & East Sussex but there is no known evidence to support this.

Equally unexplained is the lengthy presence on the Kent & East Sussex of ex-L&SWR ‘0395’ Class No.3440 for most of the period from 1940 to 1948. This was the first tender locomotive to have run on the line since the Kent & East Sussex’s ‘Ilfracombe Goods’ were laid aside in the 1930s but most of its time seems to have been spent sitting snugly in the shed at Rolvenden. Between August 1940 and January 1948 No.3440 only managed to run 15149 miles. Yet there must have been some affinity between No.3440 and the Kent & East Sussex as it was the first locomotive to return to the line in British Railways livery as No.30576 in April 1948.

No mystery attends the hiring of the three Terriers, numbers 2655, 2659 and 2678 as this was a class with which the Kent & East Sussex was familiar and which could be relied on to handle most types of traffic likely to be encountered. Unlike No.3440 the three Terriers ran on nearly every working day they were present on the line and No. 2678 almost exceeded No.3’s mileage with 134616 miles run between February 1939 (NO, it was 1940 – see footnotes) and May 1948. Both 2655 and 2678 are, of course, still in existence, the former as (ex-LB&SCR) No.55 Stepney on the Bluebell Railway and the latter as (ex-LB&SCR) No.78 Knowle on the West Somerset Railway.

Even No.2678 could not run forever and it was absent from the line for brief periods of attention on several occasions. One such occasion led to the breaking of the Kent & East Sussex First Commandment, “Thou shalt not let a locomotive with an axle loading exceeding 12 tons to run between Rolvenden and Robertsbridge”. From October 1943 to January 1944 this rule must have been broken every working day as the only locomotives available were No.3440 with an axle loading of 13 tons 10cwt and ex-SE&CR ‘01’ Class locomotives numbers 1373 and 1426 with an axle loading of 13 tons 15cwt. The operations of the line during these months was therefore entirely in the hands of overweight tender locomotives. Whether any special caution was exercised during this time goes unrecorded and there is no known record of official sanction of what was happening.

Law-breaking apart, the presence of the ‘01’ locomotives on the line set a pattern which was resumed after nationalisation with services between Tenterden and Headcorn usually entrusted to an ‘01’ and services between Tenterden and Robertsbridge entrusted to Terriers. However, the wartime use of ‘01’s numbers 1248, 1370, 1373 and 1426 was relatively limited, falling between December 1942 and January 1945, and may have been related to heavy war traffic passing over the line at the time. It was not until No.3440 went away to Ashford in January 1948 that an ‘01’ returned to the line in the shape of No.1434.