THE chassis of Kerr, Stuart 0-4-0WT 721/1901 Dundee Gasworks No. 2, owned by the Tywyn-based Narrow Gauge Railway Museum Trust and on loan to Beamish since July 2017, has been reassembled into rolling form and tested over the 2ft gauge colliery line.
The objective was to establish whether it could work on the line in view of the excessive back-to-back dimensions caused by distortion of the frame plates (RM, March), correction of which would be beyond the remit of the project. The tests showed that with some adjustment to three of the turnouts the loco should be functional at Beamish.
Items still requiring work include a perforation of the well tank, which also serves as the front frame stretcher, where a coupling jaw seems to have been forced back through the buffer beam.
The chassis of Kerr, Stuart 0-4-0WT 721/1901 Dundee Gasworks No. 2 on the narrow gauge line at Beamish during testing. In this picture it is within what will become a stone engine shed, based on Stephenson’s Chadwick Nick building in Crich.
BEAMISH