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By Anthony Coulls on

A Tale of Two Tenders

Senior Curator Anthony Coulls provides an update on the latest goings-on at the museum.

Happy New Year to all our readers – lots going on and only three weeks into 2011!

I’ll try to let you know about everything as it happens. We’ve have had the Class 306 electric unit go to Eastleigh for asbestos stripping, the Class 108 DMU depart York for the East Lancashire Railway, and a Turkish 8F loco arrive for display about Shildon (which will be the subject of another post).

In addition, Stirling Single No.1 has arrived for display for the first time at Shildon after a very successful near-six-month run of “The Railway Children” play at Waterloo in London. On 21 January, we took the opportunity to pose the loco with its new tender, which is at Shildon for restoration. These days, the loco is usually paired with a small capacity Sturrock tender, which it was given on first restoration in 1910! This is technically incorrect for the engine, a fact which has been known since the 1960s at least, when an original large capacity Great Northern tender was identified and saved for the nation to be paired with the loco.

Now, over forty years on, the “new” tender’s time for repair has come, and we hope that this image will give an idea of what is to be. Naturally, donations to help us achieve this are always most welcome!

At 9am on Friday morning, No.1 was pulled out of the Collections building at Shildon as part of a shunting move, coupled to its smaller tender with “Cornwall” behind.

4 comments on “A Tale of Two Tenders

  1. What IS it about old No 1????

    And, of course, the foresight of one HNG, so that we have every example of East Coast main motive-power from 1870-to-present extant:
    990, 251, 4472, 4498 (22), 60163, Deltics, HST’s and current!
    Plus, of course, the ex-NER examples: the “901”, the “Tennant” and the D-17 (“M”)
    What a shame that no ex-NB Atlantic was saved.

  2. I read that you identifed some orriginal GNR paint on the “new” tender. How has it compaired to the non orriginal paint on No1?

  3. The Stirling Single took its first outing in April 1870 does anyone one know the exact date in April and what the journey was?

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