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Joem the little engine with a heart of gold

The date is Thursday 13 October 1966 and the latest BR locomotive destined for a new life in railway preservation is about to be delivered in steam to its new home in the dead of night. It is 2.10am and a BR crew sign on for duty at Heaton shed near Newcastle. There in front of them was the diminutive J72 class 0-6-0T with a departmental No 59 on its tank sides and written above the number was the hand painted name Joem. The crew’s task was to take the little tank engine down the East Coast Main Line through Newcastle, Durham, Darlington, York and on to Leeds Holbeck shed.

BR staff had steamed up the engine for its new owner and even made up a wooden extension to the coal rails to increase the capacity. After oiling up the engine, the crew set off on the longest journey the engine will ever have made. Water stops must have been frequent and at York No 59 picked up Pullman car No 84 and proceeded along the main line to Leeds and Holbeck shed where it arrived at 11.40am.

Holbeck was still a working steam shed with LMS ‘Black Five’ and Jubilee 4-6-0s and the J72 stayed there until  Sunday 16th October when it was steamed up again for onward movement to Keighley where it arrived at 12 noon. It eventually reached Haworth where it was subsequently professionally repainted in North Eastern Railway livery, and named Joem. The reason for this name was once on a small brass plate on the cabside which read “This locomotive, Joem, is preserved in memory of Joseph S Ainsworth (50 years LNWR), his wife Emmeline, by their son Ronald”.

The first two words of his parents names were used to make up the name Joem.

In these early days of the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, Bob Cryer was chairman, John Bellwood who had a hand in saving the J72 was vice chairman and Ron Ainsworth owner of the J72 was made a vice president. Joem was used on Santa specials and other duties between 1968 and 1970 covering 1,325 miles in this time. It starred in the BBC TV version of The Railway Children but was eventually stopped for retubing. It left the KWVR for the Yorkshire Dales Railway in 1975 but with no work carried out, Joem was sold in 1977 to the Derwent Valley Railway at York which retubed it and introduced a new steam passenger service on this private line. It was even passed for main line running for scenes in Harrogate station in the film Agatha starring Dustin Hoffman and Vanessa Redgrave. However this new life was short lived as the railway company wanted to sell off the land causing the Yorkshire Post to carry the headline ‘End of the line for Joem?’

The family buys it back

The DVR was about to auction the locomotive when the former owner’s son Paul Ainsworth decided to take up the family’s option to buy back the locomotive and move it to the National Railway Museum for storage prior to sale.

On 4 December 1981 the engine was put up for sale by auction at Sothebys in London with an expected selling price of £25,000 but no offers were made near this price. During 1982 several preserved railways became interested but with its limited haulage capacity and high price it was never sold.

Certain members in the North Eastern Locomotive Preservation Group had been following developments but NELPG was really fully committed with a J27 0-6-0, Q6 0-8-0 and K1 2-6-0. But could a way be found to secure the engine? An examination of the J72 and a meeting in the NRM tearoom with Paul Ainsworth saw the sale price negotiated down from £25,000 to £10,250.

Purchase by NELPG

NELPG called an EGM which was packed by 75 members who were given the good news that a grant for £5,250 towards its purchase had been obtained from the Science Museum, meaning that the locomotive could belong to NELPG for just £5,000. The vote to buy it was unanimous and the appeal fund soon raised the purchase price and the engine became NELPG property on 20 November 1982.

Movement to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway soon followed and restoration to running order was quickly carried out with the engine being steamed within four months. It was used on gala days but achieved fame in September 1984 when the NYMR had no other working engines and Joem, the only engine left, successfully worked the only passenger service – two round trips Grosmont to Pickering.

Within a couple of years though, the engine really needed a full overhaul and NELPG by now had secured the ICI Wilton base where NELPG had good volunteer support and managed a government Manpower Services Commission scheme employing managers and 15 tradesmen. This scheme funded the overhaul and in accordance with NELPG members’ wishes, the engine was restored in the BR station pilot livery of NER apple green with its BR number of 69023.

No 69023 was then available for hire but would anyone be interested? I remember the engine once graced the front cover of a KWVR  stock book way back in 1968 in which it famously said that Joem was “too small for normal duties”.

Joem in demand

Bearing this in mind what happened next was truly remarkable in that one preserved railway after another had a steam power crisis and it was little Joem that came to the rescue!

The first request was from John Furness on the Yorkshire Dales Railway at Embsay who initially offered the J72 a 10 year deal if we had wished! However NELPG settled for the summer season of 1988. It was nice for the NELPG volunteers when later the YDR locomotive manager Charles Adams wrote “what a pleasure it brought to us all to have an engine of such grace and elegance on our line”

Next came a request from Mike Dean, then manager of the Didcot Railway Centre, for their spring steam gala in 1989 featuring Nos 4498 Sir Nigel Gresley, 3217 Earl of Berkeley, 9466 and 71000 Duke of Gloucester. While No 69023 was taking part in the gala, the North Norfolk Railway manager Ian Hurst asked for it for the summer months. The railway had serious problems as I then received a personal letter from David Morgan who wrote “Sadly I have to confess that we on the NNR have literally run out of steam with the failure of three locomotives and we are now in dire straits”. Sheringham therefore became the engine’s base where despite its small size, it kept the NNR service going. covering 1082 miles in the process.

In 1990 Barry Buckfield from the East Somerset Railway at Cranmore wrote “Having no motive power of our own at present, I am writing ‘cap in hand’ to ask if we can hire Joem?” Another agreement was duly signed and the engine delivered to Cranmore, being ‘handed over’ with a handshake with David Shepherd. In the period March 1990 to April 1991, the J72 covered over 2,000 miles on the line and Barry wrote “All of the loco crews were complimentary about Joem’s performance during its stay at Cranmore with the added bonus that our coal consumption was reduced”.

1991 saw a letter arrive from Richard Elliot, then general manager of the Dart Valley Railway at Buckfastleigh in Devon

To the south-west

His problem was that one working engine was leaving the railway and another suddenly needed a retube.

We agreed to the move and Richard in thanking NELPG wrote, “never has a non-GWR engine ever worked the branch” and he himself had never seen a J72 so it was a ‘cop’ when it arrived. The engine successfully worked the services between June and September keeping the line in steam. At the end of the loan, the locomotive was to move back up north to Grosmont for gala duties.

To celebrate the engines 40th birthday in 1991, NELPG President, the late Bill Harvey cut the birthday cake, and the engine ran with Chris Lawson’s Old Gentleman’s Saloon.

The then CME of the Swanage Railway, Martyn Ashworth, wrote that its railway was also in dire straits as its only other working engine was the Midland 1F 0-6-0T No 41708. Joem was by now getting a reputation of doing more miles by road than in service as we agreed the engine could head back south again for the period November 1991 to July 1992. Here it worked the services of the Purbeck line for 60 days and looked very at home in the attractive locoshed at Swanage where NELPG members were able to take some memorable night time photographs on the turntable.

No sooner had winter maintenance started then a request from the NELPG’s friends at the Scottish Railway Preservation Society was received.

The late Willie Peddie asked for help to keep the Bo’ness line running and another agreement was signed for the summer of 1993 where the J72 operated the train service from the shore of the Forth to Birkhill on 34 occasions.

The J72’s final adventure was to assist the Chinnor and Princess Risborough Association which ran the former GWR branch from Chinnor Station. As the line’s only steam engine, here Joem worked the branch successfully for the whole of the 1995 season before its return to the NYMR.

The very last year was spent at the NYMR where it was used on gala days and NELPG members trains prior to being stopped for overhaul.

This has now been carried out by volunteers working at the NELPG base at Hopetown, Darlington where an extensive overhaul has just been completed at a cost of £150,000 with the generous help of a £50,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

For an engine once considered ‘ too small for normal duties’ it is pleasing to note that many of the railways Joem helped in the 1980s and 90s have now gone on to greater things but I hope they all still have a soft spot for that great little engine that once saved their day.

Further details about helping NELPG can be found on www.nelpg.org.uk