Kitson 5469 Conway

This locomotive was one of the Stewarts & Lloyds Minerals fleet, withdrawn in 1969. It is now part of the Middleton Railway's collection of Leeds built locomotives and arrangements have now been made for its restoration at Shildon. Since withdrawal, it has been at several other places. I am trying to put together a bit of information on what happened to it in the years since 1969, if anyone can help. I believe it initially went to the 'South Cambridgeshire Rural &Industrial Steam Museum' . Any info and, especially, photos of it in this period would be welcome. PM me, if you wish. Thanks.

 

Wow, I never knew about this place and it is/was only ten minutes or so down the road from me - does it still exist? A quick Google produced this:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/36034969@N08/15981417928/

 

AFAIK it's no longer extant. A mate of mine attended a running day many years ago - by invite I hasten to add as uninvited guests were not welcome in those days.

 

Does anyone know if the coach bodies survived?

 

I believe that one of them is now at Cottesmore.

 

Cheers Ian. Shame - if I'd known about it back in the 80s/90s I could have tried to get involved...

 

Of course, Conway's stablemate Newcastle is now at Beamish...

http://beamishtransportonline.co.uk...ost-locomotives-joins-the-beamish-collection/

There was an article about the railway in Steam Railway issue 6, but the photos were mostly of Newcastle.

 

http://www.cs.vintagecarriagestrust.org/se/CarriageInfo.asp?Ref=2511 but not the same one as in the photo.

 

MS&LR 946 which was shown in the picture link is based at Ruddington on the GCR and restoration was completed this year.

 

A loco which brings back memories of my growing up in Corby and regularly riding on this loco down to the quarries within the area. The loco is of interest to me on 3 counts (1) the design was initiated by Manning Wardle and passed to Kitson on the former's demise; when Kitson was liquidated the design passed to Robert Stephenson Hawthorn which built a further 5 locomotives (RSH7003/4 of 1950; RSH7030-2 of 1951; S&L 51-55); (2) 5469 was the first of 7 locomotives (K5469 - 70 of 1933; K5473/4 of 1934; K5476-78 of 1936 ; S&L 44 - 50) that were named after Welsh locations in tribute to the Welsh wife of the company's owner and (3) when researching my family history I discovered that my grandfather had worked as an apprentice at the Elan Valley Railway when it was building the reservoir for Birmingham Water Board. I have seen a photograph of the apprentices posing by a contractor's locomotive identified as Manning Wardle 1316 which passed through many hands until being bought by Stewarts & Lloyds for use in the Corby mineral system - and where I rode on it some 60 years later !