Steam locomotive gifted to the West Somerset Railway Association

The owners of BR Standard Class 4MT steam locomotive No. 80064 have decided to transfer ownership of it as a gift to the West Somerset Railway Association.

During is time in the steam era 80064 never worked over the West Somerset line as it spent its early days allocated to various engine sheds in Kent. However, it did finish its BR days in the West of England after it was transferred to Exmouth Junction shed in June 1962 before moving to Bristol (Barrow Road) in May 1965, just three months before its withdrawal in August 1965.

The Standard Class 4MT 2-6-4 tank engines were considered to be one of the best designs of the early British Railways era. Being built in 1953, they had a relatively short period in use on the main network before they succumbed to dieselisation.

The West Somerset Railway is Britain's longest standard gauge heritage railway. It consists of all of the former branch line from Taunton via Bishops Lydeard, Dunster, and Watchet to Minehead, operating regular heritage steam and diesel-hauled trains regularly over most of this line. It is a registered charity that supports the heritage of the line, and has its own fleet of steam locomotives and rolling stock.

Geoff Garfield, Chair of Trustees of the WSRA said “It is our intention to restore 80064 as soon as possible, so that it can see regular use as part of the home fleet of WSR locomotives. We see it as ideal for that purpose, well able to cope with the challenging gradients and heavy loadings on our line.

We have been working for some time on plans to restore the locomotive. Our current restoration project, WSRA owned 4561, is well under way: we are planning to restore 80064 in tandem. We are currently finalising our plans and will share more details as soon as we can. We are very grateful to Colin Turner, Martin Nichols, and the other members of the 80064 group for this opportunity and look forward to welcoming them into our railway family”.

Jonathan Jones-Pratt, Chairman of the West Somerset Railway plc, which operates the railway said: “We are delighted to receive 80064 onto WSR metals, having operated a standard tank on the WSR before. It meets our needs very well and we are very thankful to the owning group for choosing the WSR to take the engine's future forward. The PLC is working hard with the WSRA to deliver the restoration plan which will be completed at Williton.

“This is a landmark moment for the Railway we are really excited to deliver this project. This engine will form part of the WSR home fleet and is more than capable of managing our loads and needs, we are all very excited at the prospect of seeing this engine operating in the future.”