LMS 5025 locomotive saved from scrap and returning to service after £520,000 rescue

The £520,000 rescue and return to the tracks of the LMS Black Five 4-6-0 No 5025 has come after over ten years of fund-raising and engineering work.

It marks the return to hauling trains of the LMS 5025 which has been out of service for 28 years.

The preserved locomotive has been painted and lined up for a roll out onto the Strathspey Railway and its ten miles of heritage track.

It is expected the locomotive will go straight into service to take the pressure off the one operating steam locomotive on the railway which is the Caledonian Railway 828, built at St Rollox works in 1899.

The £520,000 raised to save the train came through donations as a result of a fundraising campaign by owners the WEC Watkinson Trust and one of the most comprehensive overhauls ever undertaken on a preserved locomotive in the UK.

LMS 5025 was purchased by Scottish railway heritage pioneer, Ted Watkinson, in the late 1960s for the proposed preserved railway between Aviemore and Grantown-on-Spey which was to become known as the Strathspey Railway.

The oldest surviving Black Five moved under its own steam on the Aviemore-Broomhill line for the first time last year.

But now it is to make its first public appearance ahead of hauling passenger services again - six years after campaigners hoped had hoped it would be back in service.

Project engineer Paul Blount said: "This a good news story in a troubled world.

"It's a story of endeavour, dedication, enthusiasm, hours of effort and sheer determination. People said it couldn’t be done with our lack of facilities, manpower and finance.

"It's a story of engineering skill, an old cliché but we really are putting the Great back in Britain here at Aviemore - despite much additional work making many new parts and restoring/refurbishing other components. It worked perfectly first time - almost unheard of in preservation.

"And it's a story of belief by all the people who put time and money into the project."

The Black Five class dominated the working of the Perth to Inverness line from the mid-1930s to the end of steam on the route.

Mr Blount added: "5025 is important as it was delivered to Perth Motive Power Depot when new in 1934 and worked on the Strathspey line until late 1935 so is considered a Scottish engine "It is the oldest survivor, 6th built out of 842, and has been put back to 1934 condition."

Most of LMS 5025's working life was spent in north west England before the engine was purchased directly from British Railways by Mr Watkinson in 1968 for the then embryo Strathspey Railway project.

The locomotive was used to run services on the Strathspey Railway after the line opened in 1978 and also worked some special trains on the main line.

But LMS 5025 had to be withdrawn from service in 1993 as it was clear that major work was ultimately necessary to save the loco from the scrapyard.

Fund raising began in 2002 trust who look after the loco began to consider the possibility of restoration.

There has been £50,000 in lottery funding, two legacies, free labour by volunteers and some donations of material.

The Strathspey Steam Railway says this should be compared with the restoration of Flying Scotsman where there was a a similar amount of work which got a £3-4m grant and cost the country £4,537,892 - eight times times as much as LMS 5025.

Neil Sinclair, chairman of the WEC Watkinson Trust said: "This has been the most significant engineering work carried out on a locomotive in the Highlands since Lochgorm Works in Inverness was confined to light repairs in 1929.

5025 hauling trains again on the Strathspey Railway is also a major event in railway history. It means that passengers in the Highlands will be able to travel behind a member of the Black Five class which dominated the working of trains in the region from 1934 (when 5025 itself first worked here) for almost thirty years. The engine is also a link with the end of an era on British Railways as it was one of the last steam locomotives to be withdrawn in 1968."

Then and now

The official 'roll out' of the locomotive tomorrow marks its first public appearance since work began to rescue it. It comes before Strathspey Railway use the locomotive to haul its steam services between Aviemore and Broomhill on or around August 5.