This locomotive was built in 1955 by Robert Stephenson & Hawthorn to work at Hams Hall Power Station at Sutton Coalfield. Where it became No 12. No 13 (Works No 7846) which was also delivered new to Hams Hall in 1955 was built to the same design and has also been preserved.
|Driving Wheels||3ft 8ins|
|Cylinders||inside – 18in x 24in|
Hams Hall was a large generating station which was situated in a spacious site between the Water Orton to Tamworth and Water Orton to Whitacre Junction lines. Hams Hall A was built in 1928 by the City of Birmingham. Two more stations (Hams Hall B and C) were later built on the site, reputedly the largest in Europe at the time of their construction. It was quoted as burning approximately 774,000 tonnes of coal a year – much of it pulverised coal and all of it coming by rail.
In 1957 the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) took over the ownership of the plant.
At the power station a fleet of powerful locomotives were employed up to the mid 1970s. They were used to haul 1,000 ton coal trains.
Little is known about the early preservation history of the locomotive although it was at Sheringham on the North Norfolk railway in 1975/76.
It moved to Ruddington, at what is now the Great Central Railway at Nottingham, in 1998 for cosmetic restoration.
For many years the locomotive has been on display at the Dales countryside Museum at Hawes at Wensleydale. It carries the number 67345 as this was the number of the NER G5 class locomotive which hauled the last passenger train out of Hawes station in1959. The last freight train used the line in 1964 after which the line was lifted.