The locomotive fleet at the Statfold Barn Railway near Tamworth in Staffordshire has recently been expanded with the arrival of steam locomotive A. Boulle on loan from Suzanne Ball and her father Graeme Walton-Binns.
A. Boulle is a 4-4-0 tank engine built by Bagnall's in 1940 as Bagnall No.2627 and is one of 14 similar locomotives built for the Tongaat sugar mills, 20 miles north of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.
It is one of six of the former Tongaat Bagnalls to survive into preservation and has been reunited with its former stablemate Bagnall No.2820 Isibutu which is also at Statfold.
Graeme Walton-Binns repatriated three of the 4-4-0 Bagnalls from South Africa, the others being Bagnall No.2287 Sinembe and Bagnall No.2819 Charles Whytock. A. Boulle was the last of the three locomotives that Graeme repatriated.
A. Boulle is now on public display in Stafold Barn's Roundhouse Museum, which is accessed from the up platform at the railway's Oak Tree Halt.
The Statfold Barn Railway has three stations. Statfold Junction is the railway's main station and has three platforms and is the location of the running she, engineering workshops, and turntable.
The next station on the line is Oak Tree Halt which is the location of the museum, and also has platform where a restored Burton and Ashby Light railway runs from its own tram shed situated further up the line. Oak Tree has two platforms and is also home to some very large North American trucks.
Following Oak Tree Halt is the third station called Cogan Halt where, on busy days, trains stop to allow other trains to clear the loop and to allow passengers to photograph the scene and to take in the synergy of the landscape with the railway.
Full details about the railway and the adjacent Statfold Country Park can be found at https://www.statfold.com/railway
Will it be steamed there, or is it just for display?