Steam engine restoration uncovers historical treasure trove for rail museum

The Dominion of Canada arrived at Locomotion: The National Railway Museum at Shildon after spending nearly 50-years on show in Montreal.

The A4 class engine, which spent 26-years racing between London and Edinburgh, was badly in need of a major overhaul.

As museum volunteers stripped back the 77-year-old engine as part of a major seven month restoration project they unearthed a time capsule to the 1960s.

Stashed down the side of the fireman’s seat they found a copy of the Daily Express dating from February 11 1963, probably lodged there during a far off journey.

While other long lost objects, like the locomotive’s original cylinder cock label, were found as the grubby British Rail green paint was peeled back.

The restoration was carried out to prepare Dominion of Canada for a historic line-up of the six remaining A4 engines to mark the anniversary of Mallard reaching 125.88mph on July 3 1938.

A damaged front piece was repaired and Ian Matthews, who has also worked on the Darlington-made locomotive Tornado, returned the engine back to its original garter blue colour.

He used 55-litres of paint on the 94 tonne engine using a three-inch and one-and-a-half-inch brush.

Anthony Coulls, senior curator of railway vehicles at Locomotion, said: “It sounds a great idea on paper to bring the six remaining A4s together for the anniversary.

“However, when you consider that Dominion was in Canada and fellow A4 Dwight D Eisenhower was in America, it was a bit of a challenge.

“It cost about £200,000 to bring the two engines over and bringing them all together is not something that I ever thought that I would see.

“The funny thing is that if you ask people to name three engines they most likely will say Mallard, Rocket and Thomas.

“We have one of those on show in Shildon for this display. This will put Shildon on the map.”

He added: “The restoration proved to be fascinating for the volunteers at the museum.

“We found an old copy of the Daily Express and other historical items of interest when we carried out the work.”

Designer Sir Nigel Gresley dreamt up the A4s as a streamlined service to whisk passengers the length of the country.

The engines’ design is thought to have been inspired by the Bugatti sports cars. For many in Britain at the time, especially when Mallard broke the world record, they were signs of patriotic pride.

While Mallard is the most famous of the engine class many others graced the London and North-Eastern Railway service.

Dominion of Canada was built in May 1937 and was originally to be named Buzzard. Instead it was called Woodcock before it was renamed Dominion of Canada in June 1937.

It is one of several A4 locomotives named after British colonies such as Commonwealth of Australia and Empire of India.

British Rail scrapped them for diesels in the late 1960s and the engines were offered to their namesake countries.

Some nations like Canada and America took up the offer, while others like South Africa and New Zealand declined.

It seemed as if the A4s would be consigned to history and that they would never be seen together again, but then plans were drawn up to mark Mallard’s anniversary.

Firstly the engines, Dominion, Mallard, Eisenhower, Union of South Africa, Bittern and Sir Nigel Gresley, were reunited.

Part of the deal to bring Dominion of Canada and Dwight D Eisenhower back to the UK was that they would have cosmetic repairs carried out to leave them in a perfect condition.

Staff at the National Railway Museum, in York, repaired Dwight D Eisenhower.

The six engines were on show at York’s railway museum last year as part of the anniversary events to showcase Mallard’s achievement.

They are now appearing at Locomotion for The Great Goodbye display.

So popular are the engines that museum staff in Shildon expect there to be around 72,000 visitors compared to the regular yearly average of 200,000 people.

In fact since the engines were first brought back together there have been several serious offers to buy some of them. All bids, though, have been turned down.

This is expected to be the last time that all six of the A4s are together as they are to disperse at the end of the show.

The Great Goodbye runs between Saturday, February 15 and Sunday, February 23 with doors open from 9.30am to 5pm with free entry.