Waddon arrived in Canada 50 years ago today

Today (Friday Sept 6th) is the 50th anniversary of Terrier tank #54 Waddon landing in Montreal.
back in 1960/61 the Canadian Railroad Historical Association asked the BTC if they would like to donate an old locomotive, preferably a terrier, for their fledgeling museum (now known as Exporail), and they agreed (those were the days!). The onus was on the Association to cover transportation costs, shipping and dock handling etc which was agreed to. BTC had earmarked 680s, the Lancing works shunter, and a year later, in June 1962, an official hand over took place at Preston Park, Brighton. BR agreed to do the cosmetic restoration and repaint back into LBSCR condition (or near enough), for 500 pounds, (a lot of money in those days), that took place at Eastleigh in the spring and summer of 1963. The trans Atlantic shipping and Dock and Harbour handling were all done as donations, and Waddon arrived in Montreal on September 6th 1963. There was an added bonus of a 21 foot length of LBSCR Bullhead rails and chairs.

 

View attachment 8110 View attachment 8110 View attachment 8110 I forgot to add a photo. I took this one last week.

 

She's nicely restored, am I right that it was done by a group of British ex-pats? What's in front, where Dominion of Canada used to be, CP Park Car?

 

Hi Flaman, yes you are right. I approached the Museum in 2004 and asked if I could put a group together to cosmetically restore Waddon. We made a presentation outlining our objectives, with a timeline etc, etc, and then myself and two good friends did the rest, completing it in the summer of 2005. And yes, that is "Sibley Park", a classic CP stainless steel dome car taking advantage of D of C's absence to get in out of the rain! As I'm sure you know, like so many railway museums, there are always too many exhibits and never enough under cover storage.

 

Yes, tell me about it!!

Congratulations on a job well done with "Waddon". I hope that "Sibley Park" can be kept indoors, the Park Cars are fantastic vehicles. I travelled in one from Vancouver to Toronto last January, one of my most memorable rail trips ever.

 

It's been on my Bucket List for quite a while!

 

Do it, while it's still there!

 

hi owd sweety,
re the repaint do you remember what paint you used for the golden ochre?
cheers julian

 

Hi Julian, I do indeed, it was an industrial grade enamel that we had made for us by Sherwin Williams.
We took actual paint samples from Waddon and they were able to scan them in their colour spectrometer
to get a match. So although I could not say it is the same as Stroudley's original colour, it is very close to
Eastleigh's 1963 version of it, which better suited our purpose!
Cheers,
Owd Sweedy

 

hi old sweety!
many thanks for the reply.
looks like Sherwin Williams did an extremely good job for you. i know the model of COMO in Brighton museum painted by the painter foreman of Brighton works at the turn of the last century and WADDON's paint looks an extremely authentic match.
cheers,
julian

 

Unfortunately Brighton works had closed by '63, so Eastleigh did the retro fit and repaint. I believe the replacement chimney came from "Morden". The copper top was the hardest thing to restore, in the end we got it done professionally, off site, and it still looks good as new. Morden was the Brighton works shunter as either DS377 or later as BR 32635. Waddons wheelsets, so I am told, came from Boxhill in 1949. I took some photo's of the stampings on the bosses, which I have somewhere. I can dig them out if anyone is interested.
Cheers,
Owd Sweedy.
(not "old sweety", people will talk Julian) LOL

p.s Sweedy was the nickname given to the GER by railway men from York, northwards. A reflection on the GER's agricultural traffic perhaps?

 

Waddon looks superb in the photos.

With the succes of the A4 meet, should there be a Ten Terriers event in a few years time, possibly followed by a visit to Canada of a working example?

 

Looking better than 'Boxhill' which has been tucked away in the Learning Platform building at York for a few years now.

 

hi old sweedy,
my apologies re your profile name.
the copper cap wont have come off MORDEN DS377/32635 as the Bluebell have it's chimney and it was fitted to STEPNEY a few years ago whilst a new chimney was made. when MORDEN was taken to eastleigh for scrapping in 1963 it's cast iron Marsh/Field chimney (with later copper cap addition) had already been removed.
cheers,
julian

 

Hi Julian, the chimney switch info is interesting.
I went back and looked for my sources for this story about Waddon swopping her Drummond chimney for the one off Morden.
They are:-
-Frederick Rich. Railway World magazine Feb 1983, article entitled "Boxhill, Morden and Waddon, a tale of three Rooters". Page 65.
-Tom Middlemas. "Stroudley and his Terriers", Pendragon publications 1995. Page 78 and page 92.

So I am a little confused about the Bluebell having it, and if that is the case, it poses the question whose chimney does Waddon carry?
It would also be interesting to know which Terrier donated the condensing pipes that are on Waddon.
Cheers,
Owd Sweedy

 

2022 would be a good date (150 years after the introduction of the class...)

I'd go to that event!

Tom

 

hi old sweedy,
there is reference on the Bluebell website to Stepney having the ex-MORDEN chimney fitted for awhile plus pictorial proof, plus ive a pic somewhere of MORDEN on the way to eastleigh at Havant sans chimney.
eastleigh made the condensing pipes, and the new chimney. model engineer magazine ran a construction series of building a 5"gauge miniature of BOXHILL in 1963, and the articles have a number of pics showing progress on WADDON whilst being restored at eastleigh.
cheers,
julian

 

hi old sweedy

have a look at this link re MORDEN's chimney and STEPNEY

http://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/~uhaa009/bb/locos/news/news_01b30_1.html

conclusive evidence i suggest!

STEPNEY's chimney was fabricated by eastleigh in 1960 as a replacement for the Marsh cast iron chimney she/he had carried since the early 1930s, being a steel parallel tube with a base added, and a not very correct copper cap fitted which she/he still carries. by 1963 eastleigh obviously decided to take a bit more care in making a genuine replacement Stroudley chimney for WADDON. the correct Stroudley chimney isnt parallel unlike the one they made for STEPNEY in 1960. there is a suggestion that STEPNEY's 1960 chimney came off BODIUM but this is frankly bunkam!

the original Stroudley chimney of NEWINGTON now W8 FRESHWATER still survives at Havenstreet on the Isle of Wight, though FRESHWATER now has the B4 chimney off NEWPORT, and NEWPORT has a replica Wheeler and Hurst IWCR chimney. in service the A1s and A1X's had 4 types of chimney - the original Stroudley chimney, the Marsh/Field cast iron chimney designed for the A1x rebuilds that needed new chimneys, and the A.B. Macloed B4 Drummond chimneys fitted on the isle of wight in the early 1930's (Macloed's standardisition as the O2's and E1's on the Island all had Drummond chimneys), also of course the IWCR Wheeler and Hurst chimneys.
arguably the Drummond chimneys were superior as they had a diverging taper which assists the draughting.
cheers,
julian

 

Some more correspondence about the (alleged) Stepney/Bodiam chimney swap is on the website of Bodiam's owners, the Terrier Trust:
http://www.terriertrust.org.uk/bodschim.htm

One of the letters, quoting a contemporary source, says "It is quite possible that there was an unintentional chimney change, as when chimneys were removed, they were put in a compound outside No.2 bay, unlabelled, and brought back into the shop for fitting as required."

Unless the chimneys were stamped with an original identity how would anyone know which was which other than being able to say (from photos) which pattern was carried at a particular period?

 

Hi Julian, Interesting, now I begin to see why the bill was 500. pounds! When we took the condensing pipes off to clean and polish, (along with the Salter safety valves, clacks, whistle and washout plugs) we found there was no corresponding hole in the smokebox or tank front. See photo.
Cheers,
Owd Sweedy,