1604 Progress

Nearly 15 years since the plan to bring the Middy’s own locomotive back to life began, Hudswell Clarke no.1604’s boiler came back from the Middy’s contractors to be fitted to the rest of the loco to ensure all the components marry up properly prior to the final testing and certification.

The Restoration Team have high hopes that 1604 will be in operation sometime later in 2023, but there are still some obstacles to overcome which, largely due to the lack of a clear manual on how to manage the reconstruction, have proved not as straightforward as first hoped. To the non-technical amongst us, it effectively means that the boiler has to be dropped in from above rather the being slid in from the front. However the Restoration Team are confident that the adjustments they are making now will eliminate the problems encountered so far, although it may mean undoing some of the work already done on the chassis.

When ready the loco will then be officially christened as No.4 in the railway’s register as literally the fourth steam engine owned by the Mid-Suffolk Light Railway. Nos 1, 2 and 3 all from the same manufacturer, Hudswell Clarke of Leeds, were all scrapped in the 1920s almost as soon as the LNER took over the Middy after the Big 4 grouping of the railways following the First World War.

John Durrant, Associate Director and the railway’s Locomotive Superintendent said, “There have been many times when people doubted if it could be done, understandable as 1604 is coming up to 100 years old, but here we are entering the final straight of bringing the loco back into traffic. Having our own operational steam locomotive is a major step forward in securing the future fo the Mid-Suffolk Light Railway, apart from being an attraction in it’s own right, it means reducing the cost of hiring in steam locos for Steam Railway days which, like everything else gets no cheaper” .