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Wissington 0-6-0ST - 1700
History
Wissington - A Brief History-by Ian Lake
Wissington is a unique
piece of East Anglian heritage. The engine was the last
steam engine in commercial service and ownership in East
Anglia. Wissington is also a surviving item of the
uniquely East Anglian phenomena, the agricultural railway,
generally defined as engines fighting excessive floribunda
on hideous track. Wissington was well photographed, both
meandering around the edges of fields up to its axles in
undergrowth and on the light railway from the factory to
BR.
Wissington is an important national asset as a typical
example of the hundreds of engines built by the engine
builders of Leeds to serve the coal mines, factories and
industry of Great Britain. Thus in this respect it is
special by being absolutely standard.
In 1938 Hudswell Clarke at Leeds rolled out a "Countess of
Warwick" design 0-6-0 saddle tank for the British Sugar
Corporation (BSC). The BSC, who make Silver Spoon sugar,
despatched it to their Wissington factory and it was this
that was to bring the engine renown. While the railway
lines within the factory and to the Great Eastern Stoke
Ferry branch were normal enough, the Wissington Light
Railway was decidedly not. The Light Railway stretched out
into the fen in what at first looked to be an illogical
fashion with branches apparently going nowhere. The lines
followed the field patterns and featured a number of 90
degree bends. The government to keep it open during the
war in 1941 requisitioned the railway. A beaming Minister
of Agriculture, in his braces, drove the inaugural train
hauled by Wissington with the headboard "The
Bread-and-Butter Express". The farmers shipped off their
beet and potatoes from this productive, but largely
roadless, tract of country . By the 1950s the route was a
forest of weeds so the track could rarely be seen. It was
the photos of Wissington lurching across the landscape
apparently without track that brought the loco its fame.
In 1957 the fen lines succumbed to concrete roads and all
the surviving locomotives, including Wissington, then
worked around the factory during the sugar beet seasons.
Amongst Wissington's drivers were a number of characters
including one who was a poacher and to avoid being caught
he hid his shotgun in the saddletank in a waterproof bag.
With the introduction of diesel locos the steam fleet was
reduced until just Wissington remained. Steamed
infrequently, to cover for diesel failures or servicing,
the loco was relegated to the end of the headshunt and was
last used during the 1974/5 season.
In 1978 the British Sugar Corporation donated the
locomotive to the Society and for the next 20 years the
engine was a static exhibit at the end of Platform 2 at
Sheringham, being maintained in its later years in
excellent cosmetic condition by the Howard family. The
locomotive is now under active mechanical restoration with
a view to becoming a working locomotive on the railway.
This article first
appeared in Joint Line, the Midland and Great Northern
Joint Railway Society's award winning quarterly journal,
which all members of the Society receive.
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