IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Draper Way, LEIGHTON BUZZARD, LU7 4UD

The tracks from the locomotive and carriage shed converge to a headshunt. At the start of a running day, locomotive and train leave the shed and reverse onto the second furthest track back to the station. The far track is the running line.

This loco on the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway spent most of its life in India. Some of the brass plates on the side are in Indian writing.

A train of wagons is seen in front of a passenger train. The locomotive is 778 - a 4-6-0T by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, Philadelphia, USA, No. 44656 of 1917. This was one of 495 built for the British War Department for use in France in WWI. It was then sent to India and finished its working life on a sugar mill railway. It was withdrawn in 1983. The design is recognisably American and it was nice to see it at work in the UK.

The diesel is the emergency back-up loco, in case of the operating steam locomotive failing. The other is "Chaloner", a vertical boiler loco, dating from 1877 and in working order up and down a section of track at Page's Park.

The main access to the railway is at Page's Park station and this is a view in the yard as the engines were being gathered for the parade of engines at 17:00 to celebrate 50 years of preservation following the closure of the 2' gauge quarry railway in 1967. The locomotive on the left is Chaloner - a De Winton vertical boiler Welsh quarry locomotive built in 1877, so now 140 years young.

'Beaudesert' was acting as shed pilot, and had moved the steam locomotives out of the shed as they got up steam. It was an Alan Keef rebuilt of 1999, works number 59R, using parts of a 1979 900 mm gauge Simplex.

This was part of the process of getting the engines in the right order for the cavalcade of steam and diesel engines at the end of the day. This was fun but the light was very bad by then. This is engine No. 11 - 'P C Allen' and is an 0-4-0WT by Orenstein & Koppel, works No. 5834 of 1913 and a standard 20 HP type (639 of these were built). It weighs in at 5.57 tons. It worked at a Solvay alkali works, Torrelavega, Spain. The locomotive is named after the chairman of ICI from 1968 to 1971 who was apparently an enthusiast and arranged the rescue of this engine.

The green locomotive is No. 6 'Pedemoura' - an 0-6-0WT by Orenstein & Koppel, Drewitz, near Berlin as works N0. 10808 of 1924. It was used in the Douro Valley, Portugal to haul coal from the Minas de Pejao to a wharf on the river. Behind to the left is No. 5 'Elf' and passing on a passenger train is No. 4 'Doll'. See - Image

'Elf' gets up steam for the second train of the day. It is an Orenstein & Koppel product of 1936, works number 12740. It was built for plantation work in West Africa.