Andrew Barclay locomotive 'Lord Fisher' - specification and history

16 June 2013 - Return to service at Yeovil Railway Centre (Photo courtesy John Rees. The following information is courtesy of the owner, Barry Buckfield.

Specification - Order Book Entry 1398 Cylinders : 10” x 18” Gauge : 4’ – 8 ½” 0 – 4 – 0 No. of Specification built to : 7456 / 21 Date of Specification : 24/6/15 Date copy of Specification sent to Works : 11/8/15 Boiler No. : 580 Colour : Green Lining : Black and White lines Brass Nameplates : ‘LORD FISHER’ 3” letters To : R. N. Airship Station, Nr. Rochester, Kent Engineer Commandant : J. H. Jenkins Left Works : 7/9/15 A Short History ‘LORD FISHER’ A Short History * Dispatched from Andrew Barclay’s Caledonia Works, Kilmarnock, on 7th September 1915 * Supplied NEW to Royal Naval Airship Station, Kingsnorth, Kent * Transferred to Air Ministry, Farnborough, Hamphire, (date not known) * Sold to Yorktown (Camberley) and District Gas and Electricity Company, Surrey, in February 1938, for use at Blackwater Gas Works * Southern Gas Board, Blackwater Gas Works, from 1st May 1949. The locomotive received a new boiler in March 1952 * To Hilsea Gas Works, Portsmouth, in August 1956. Locomotive renamed ‘T Carmichael’. Locomotive dumped out of use by 1960 * Transferred to Southampton Gas Works on 14th November 1960 and completely overhauled * Locomotive, (now un-named), supplied and put to work on the Chapel Tramway, Southampton, (an industrial railway), on 1st March 1961 * Chapel Tramway goes into liquidation in March 1967 and the locomotive offered for sale. Purchased privately on 29th November 1967, (in working order), for the sum of £ 230.00 * Locomotive transferred to the Longmoor Military Railway (LMR) on 26th January 1968 to join other preserved locomotives. Renamed ‘Lord Fisher’ at Longmoor in July 1969 * Remains at Longmoor and later at Liss on the southern end of the LMR, until the preservation scheme there fails in 1971. * ‘Lord Fisher’ leaves the LMR in November 1971, (the final locomotive to leave the military railway following its closure), for storage, then to the ill fated preservation scheme at Radstock on the Somerset and Dorset line, in 1972 * With the failure of the Radstock preservation scheme, ‘Lord Fisher’ was transferred to the East Somerset Railway (ESR) at Cranmore, being the first locomotive to arrive at this new preservation centre, in November 1973 * ‘Lord Fisher’ becomes a regular performer at the ESR between 1973 and 2007 * Locomotive transferred to the Yeovil Railway Centre in early 2011 for overhaul * ‘Lord Fisher’ enters traffic at the Yeovil Railway Centre in June 2013. Withdrawn from service 17 July 2022 pending a 10 yearly overhaul.

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