GCR LNER Robinson P3 2-8-2T

Well... sort of!

It would appear that several GCR Robinson 8K (O4) 2-8-0s were actually built by Kitson in 2-8-2T form. Two of these survive in preservation in Australia, at the Richmond Vale Railway, although photographs are hard to find and one of the locos appears still to have significant collision damage dating to its working life. Intriguingly, it appears the oldest of them dates to 1908 - three years before the first 8K was built...

The tanks look like a bit of an afterthought - perhaps also a tad too redolent of a certain "Little Blue Embarrassment"! Nonetheless, an interesting discovery, one of which I was hitherto entirely unaware...

...one to put on the WIBN new-build list?! Could be useful for a few lines...

Great Central Railway 8K LNER O4 Mikado 2-8-2T by BrightonBaltic posted Sep 4, 2017 at 8:57 AM

 

They were supposedly based on the GCR 8A 0-8-0 according to Richmond Vale Railway stock details on the Internet.

Found I had a photo of one of them, stored out of the way on the preserved operation back in 2003 . Not a brilliant scan of the original slide, but I have found problems of discolouration on some of my slides of that period.....



They obviously liked their 2-8-2T's on the RVR/SMR as they had 14 of these Beyer Peacock built ones, of which a number are preserved.

 

Some rather grim news from the Richmond Vale Railway mentioned in this thread.........
https://www.railpage.com.au/news/s/asbestos-fears-at-scorched-richmond-vale-rail-museum-site
Appears that the locos weren't affected.

 

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4924941/its-all-bloody-ash-fires-toll-hard-to-bear/

 

That's the saddest news I've read in a long time. For anyone involved in any kind of heritage preservation, fire is the worst nightmare. My heart goes out to them.

It would be wonderful if preservationists in this country could now rally round to help them, as we did for the SVR and GWSR when they faced crises a few years back!