LSWR Adams Radial Tank No. 488

Designed for the LSWR’s inner suburban network, these locomotives were displaced by electrification, and the entire class was scrapped by 1927 with the exception of two which were retained to operate the Lyme Regis branch, where sharp curvature made the use of anything other than this class of loco impossible. Many other classes were tried, but they either couldn’t cope with the heavily loaded holiday trains, or were too inflexible for the many curves. This particular loco though had been sold to the military during World War I, and in 1919 was sold on to the privately run East Kent Railway. In 1946 it was bought by the Southern and overhauled to provide relief for the other two Lyme Regis engines, and the three operated the branch until 1960.

No. 488 was chosen by the Bluebell since, out of the three, it was closest to original condition at the time of withdrawal, having an original Adams boiler. Following several spells in traffic over the next 30 years on the Bluebell it is the boiler which is now preventing this fine Victorian engine from steaming.

In 2019 it was repainted into the last livery it carried when running on the Lyme Regis Branch, as No. 30583 to match the two visiting ex-LSWR locomotives which were at the Bluebell for our Branch Line Weekend that year.

It will probably require a complete new boiler barrel before it can work again. It is now in “Atlantic House” at Sheffield Park for an assessment of the work required, and to allow for funds to be raised for the work required, whilst ‘Normandy’ is given a relatively quick overhaul ahead of it.

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