A well tank to Wittersham Road

Early spring on the Kent & East Sussex Railway and with its fire irons stowed at a jaunty angle,
visiting National Railway Museum-owned 1874-built Beattie well tank No 30587 crosses the
Hexdon Channel with a Sentimental Journeys photo charter on 17 March. GEOFF SILCOCK

By Geoff Silcock

At a time of larger lines making the heritage headlines, Geoff Silcock headed in the opposite direction in mid-March, to where the meeting of two classic Victorian London suburban locomotive designs took place at the Kent & East Sussex Railway...

Looking back, in the midst of the almost weekly runs over the Settle & Carlisle and beyond over the Spring Bank Holiday weekend of 1980, I became part of an unforgettable epic journey taking 63¼4 hours, with a diminutive 12-ton four-coupled Peckett tank locomotive Marcia, over the original trackwork then still in place on the KESR from Wittersham Road to Bodiam, on what was then the undeveloped part of the line.

I remember recording after the event that the scale of the apple blossom in the vicinity was almost on a par with the confetti from an imagined thousand weddings, and consequently, that soon bigger locomotives would come again to Bodiam, on the line that would again take its visitors from the prettiest of towns in the Kentish Weald to the fairytale castle in East Sussex that is Bodiam.

Of the former, spring seems to come earlier each year, and with not so much apple blossom about, the pungent yellow oilseed rape in the fields is certainly no substitute. However, the line from Tenterden to Bodiam has been returned to its rightful running status, with the average journey now taking just 45 minutes, and utilising bigger locomotives than were used in the line’s previous existence.

It is however, especially gratifying to see that the Kent & East Sussex Railway has remained true to what would be termed as its original ‘mission statement’, and today can boast a veritable feast of exquisitely restored vintage coaches and several smaller historic locomotives, that can together work turn and turn about with its MkI ‘people carriers’, taking an ever increasing clientele through the Weald, and into East Sussex and Bodiam.

The Southern Branch Line Weekend over 15-16 March, and the photo charter scheduled for the next day would feature a visitor in the form of one of the two surviving LSWR Beattie 0298 class 2-4-0WT engines, which dates from 1874. These were seemingly seen as an anachronism even when built for the ever-expanding suburban services of the LSWR. However, three were retained from the start of the 20th century, to work on the sharply curved mainly china clay line from Wadebridge to Wenfordbridge, and they could also be seen occasionally deputising on single coach trains in the area until their demise in late 1962.

It was in 1872 that the LBSCR had introduced the Al class of 0-6-0T for its own expanding suburban services, now better known as ‘Terriers’, or by the more colloquial name of ‘Rooters’. Two were acquired second-hand by Col. Stephens for the emergent Kent & East Sussex Railway in 1901 and 1905, and the former still runs regularly today as the original KESR No 3 Bodiam.

The third of the trio expected to run over the KESR Southern Branch Line weekend was the resident South Eastern & Chatham Railway P class 0-6-0T No 753, though this was unable to appear due to a severe problem which had developed with the bearings on the driving axle. Its place in the gala line-up was taken by the sole surviving post-war 1949 Hawksworth design 0-6-0PT No 1638, which is now in the direct ownership of the railway.

With the appearance of BR-liveried N7 0-6-2T No 69621 and light prairie 2-6-2T No 5552 for the early May Gala weekend, plus another Great Western locomotive 0-6-2T No 6619 booked for later in the operating season, and other visiting engines for Thomas and Ivor the Engine activities, the number of proposed visitors in 2008 alone is more than the total number of engines the original KESR ever possessed in its entire history.

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