Rod’s love of steam trains has been widely written about over the years and we have all read about his current mammoth project moving his 1,500 sq. ft layout ‘Grand Street and Three Rivers City’ back to Essex from L.A. in seven shipping containers. And another railway related story hit the news this week when it was reported that Rod has given his backing to a group 200+ and climbing rail enthusiasts by becoming patron of the B17 Steam Locomotive charity trust that has charitable status.
This is a very interesting project, although it is not actually new news, membership secretary John Pearson told SMILER “Rod has not ‘just’ become our Patron as the article stated. Rod accepted our invitation to be our Patron in April last year (2020) and information regarding this has been on the Home Page of our website since then”
After starting building in 2015 in North Wales when the frames had been cut, The trust then relocated last October and started building their new B17 engine, provisionally named ‘Spirit of Sandringham’ at a factory in Sheffield with help from engineering students at the city’s university for some aspects of design improvement, The chassis are already in place and the aim is to have the loco operating on heritage railways and hauling special excursion trains over mainline routes before the end of the decade.
The first B17, with its 4-6-0-wheel configuration, was built in 1928 for the North Eastern Railway and named “Sandringham” after the Royal Family’s Norfolk residence, hence called Sandringham or Sandys. As well as the London express routes, they were also earmarked to pull a cross-country boat train nearly 300 miles from Harwich to Manchester and Liverpool and many of the early B17s were called after stately homes, with number 2847 ‘Helmingham Hall’ chosen to pull King George V’s funeral train back to London after he died at Sandringham in 1936.
In another interesting twist 25 of the original 73 B17 engines that were designed by Sir Nigel Gresley, the genius engineer behind Flying Scotsman were named after famous football clubs giving the locomotives the nickname ‘The Footballers’ including ‘Grimsby Town’, ‘Arsenal’, ‘Sheffield United, three of the FA Cup semi-finalists during the 1935-36 season, and ‘Derby County’ with ‘Darlington’, ‘Huddersfield Town’, ‘Sunderland’ and ‘Leeds United’ following, before later in 1936 number 2859 was called ‘Norwich City’ but they were all scrapped by the end of the summer of 1960
One of the men behind the scheme is trust director John Peat, who explained, The B17 really was a railway icon, but there are very few photos or memories of this class of engine. We are looking for people who would like to help us recreate this locomotive – either with financial support, through joining the trust, sponsorship or by offering their skills.
We know we have a few SMILER members out there that share Rod’s passion if you would like to read the fully story of this very exciting project or find out more about The B17 Steam Locomotive Trust and maybe even donate to the trust go to https://www.b17steamloco.co.uk
We also know how you all love a good badge and The Trust has a great merchandise section with a superb logo badge so you can show your support.or if you have any questions about the trust email [email protected]
Rod Photo by Tommy Kevitt