- Class: E4
- Wheels: 0-6-2T
- Built: 1898
- Numbers Carried: 473 ‘Birch Grove’, B473, 2473, s2473, 32473
- Last Overhaul Completed: January 2010
- Last Operational: May 2016
- Current Status: Static display, awaiting overhaul
- Owned By: Bluebell Railway
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The only surviving locomotive to a design by Robert Billinton, ‘Birch Grove’ is one of a family of locomotives known as Radial Tanks due to the radial axle beneath the cab. Mixed traffic locomotives, they were equally at home on local passenger workings as branch-line goods services. Although almost the oldest, the E4s were amongst the last of the Brighton Radials to survive.
‘Birch Grove’ itself was one of the first two Brighton locos to be repainted into Southern Railway livery, as B473, in February 1924. It was bought straight out of BR service in 1962 and served the Bluebell for a decade before being withdrawn for a protracted stop-go overhaul. It finally became operational again in 1998 thanks to a bequest which paid for the major boiler repairs required and a team of volunteers who undertook some of the easier boiler work and most of the remaining work, as is well recorded here.
Remarkably ‘Birch Grove’ retains her original boiler, number 891, fitted new in July 1898. It had been passed to various other Brighton tanks of classes D3, E3 and E4 before being refitted to Birch Grove in 1960.
It was repainted from LBSCR umber livery into BR lined black in February 2005, for a limited period – see photos. With a boiler still in good condition, its next overhaul was started immediately following the expiry of its boiler certificate in May 2008, and after a major rebuild of its cylinders, which was the most significant item of work required, it re-entered service in January 2010, carrying 1920s Southern Railway olive green livery, running until May 2016. At its next overhaul it will require major replacement of copper plates forming the inner firebox.
