The Locomotives

Graf Schwerin-Lowitz

This Locomotive was built by Arn Jung of Germany in 1908 and came from the now closed Mecklenburg - Pommersche Schmalspurbahn in East Germany. It is an 0-6-2 well tank engine with auxiliary tender and weighs 14 tons. It came in very poor condition and the final indignity was when its chimney was destroyed by a low bridge on the journey here. It had a complete rebuild to enable it to start working from 1981 onwards. In 1993 it had a new boiler built here in Pant. It has travelled over 85,000 Miles in service on this railway.

No. 2

No 2 was built by Baldwin of Philadelphia in the USA in 1930. It spent its working life hauling limestone near Port Elizabeth in South Africa. In 1974 it ran away driver-less and after travelling a few miles it left the track and was wrecked. It was treated as an accident write-off by the South African insurers and was purchased as salvage. It was shipped back as deck cargo to Liverpool and put into store. It is a 4-6-2 tender locomotive weighing 47 tons and is now in service after a long rebuild.

No. 26

This is an older Baldwin built in Philadelphia in 1898. It ran for many years on the Mogyana railway in Brazil and is now being rebuilt in our workshop at Pant.

New Locomotives

We are also building two new locomotives from the original Baldwin drawings.

All railway maintenance is carried out by the railways own paid staff and in addition to routine repairs and servicing complete locomotive rebuilds are carried out not only for this railway but other lines as well. Although some of the workshop machinery dates back to the turn of the century it still performs a useful job of work. The wheel lathe was built in the 1890's and came from Southend Pier where it was used for turning tram wheels.

In addition to boiler making, tank and cab riveting, wheel turning and machining on locomotives - carriages are also built. The five in use were all built here using bogies from South African freight cars and couplings from the Isle of Man. The Four observation saloons were designed here but the caboose was built to an original 1903 American drawing from the Sandy River Railroad in Maine.