North Yorkshire Moors Railway 44806

On duty yesterday on the NYMR, seen here at

Pickering

 

 

An interesting history to this locomotive.

 

Numbered 4806 by the LMS, after nationalisation

in 1948, she had 40000 added to her number under

 British Railways.  44806 was one of the last locomotives

 to be withdrawn from service, surviving until 1968, the

 last year of steam on British Railways steam.

 

See this locomotive on the NYMR or visit

http://www.nymr.co.uk/

 

Many thanks to Wikipedia for the article below

 

44806 was an early candidate for preservation, moving directly from BR to the "Steamtown" collection at Carnforth, housed in the same loco depot where steam's final fires had been dropped only recently before. She fortunately avoided the usual years of neglect and parts-stripping at Woodham Brothers scrapyard in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales.
In preservation she was also unusually well-travelled between museums and lines, although staying in the North West of England. Some years were spent based in Accrington, with working excursions to a planned preserved line at Helmshore. Although these exact plans never quite came to fruition after the station's closure in 1972, most of the line survived as what is now the East Lancashire Railway.^[2]
In 1973, 44806 was based for a short time at the newly reopened Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway, as their largest and only tender engine. Operating a large tender engine was difficult though, on a line without a turntable. Whilst at Haverthwaite, 44806 was adopted by the ITV children's TV series Magpie and named "Magpie". The Magpie programme was always in competition with the BBC's comparable Blue Peter, who had earlier adopted the LNER A2 Peppercorn 532 Blue Peter, conveniently built under that name.
Shortly after this, a crack was found in the boiler, in the outer firebox. Haverthwaite did not have the workshop facilities for an engine of this length or weight, so she was moved yet again, this time to "Steamport" in Southport. These were busy times for the British steam preservation movement, with many new projects and scrapyard rescues all competing for attention, time and money. As a result, 'Magpie' languished. In 1983, with a wind-down of Steamport owing to pressure over the site, Magpie moved to Manchester and the Museum of Science and Industry, as a purely static exhibit.

In 1993, 44806 and her 20-year old firebox crack travelled to the Llangollen Railway,^[3] where repair work began. This work took almost three years to complete, with a return to steam on 15 September 1995.^[1] She worked on the Llangollen for nearly ten years, first back as 4806 in black LMS livery with red lining, then once again as 44806 wearing the BR "ferret and a dartboard" tender badges with red and white lining.

Expiry of her 10 year boiler certificate prompted another rebuild. The work this time was less serious, being mostly wear items such as boiler tubes, firebox stays and worn tyres, but any work on engines of this size is a major undertaking. The work was completed successfully and she returned to steam on 29 August 2007 and was back in service on 14 September.^[1] Her new livery was again BR period, but this time in unlined gloss black.
Since her initial preservation, 44806 had been privately owned by one man, Ken Aldcroft. Aldcroft died in 2003, 44806 passing to his daughter Ms Renee Wyatt. To commemorate Aldcroft's 35 years of preservation (he owned her for ten years more than the original owners), she was renamed Kenneth Aldcroft.

44806 Kenneth Aldcroft was based and working at the Llangollen Railway.^[3] 2008 was the 40th anniversary of the end of British Railways steam, and of 44806's own preservation. In July 2013, the locomotive was offered for sale, and has been purchased by the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.^[4]