A STEAM locomotive type not seen running in Britain in more than half a century will be one of the stars of the Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways’ Hunslet 125 event.
The railways will be celebrating the 125th birthdays of former Penrhyn Railway pair Linda and Blanche during the June 22-24 event, at which it is hoped to attract as many Hunslet locomotives as possible – with a special emphasis on the unusual and rarely seen.
A star guest will be the War Office Locomotive Trust’s Hunslet 4-6-0T No. 1215 of 1916, which was repatriated from Australia in 2005 and has been under restoration since, with a new boiler built.
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The restoration was backed with a PRISM grant from the Arts Council and then by a private benefactor.
A total of 155 of the type was built in Leeds by Hunslet for use in the trenches on the Western Front during the First World War, for the movement of personnel, munitions, and equipment. They were built to the technical specification of the War Office. The first locomotive of the class was completed in little more than three months.
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