Profile: Austerity 0-6-0ST

The un-sung hero of UK Railway Preservation, the humble Austerity 0-6-0ST is 80 years old this year. Designed in 1942 to provide transport needs for the forthcoming invasion of Europe (D-Day), 377 were built in Wartime, with a further 77 for the NCB and 14 for the MOD. Around 70 of these go-anwywhere, do-anything locomotives exist today in preservation.
Many thanks to Mark Ibbs, check him out at:
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[@zeruiahwild1]

I love "Can be lit with a candle in the fire box and pull a house down" lmao truly mighty little locomotives and imo quite stunning, great videos I always love and look forward to them! :)

[@FlyingScott]

Woah, you almost nailed "Nederlandse Spoorwegen"! With the NS the Hunslets were their class 8800, allocated to the liberated south, seeing use at such depots as Roosendaal, Maastricht en Eindhoven. They were also regulars on coal and ore trains, and two still exist today, one in the Netherlands at the Zuid-Limburgse Spoorweg Maatschappij and the other went back to England to work at the Ribble Steam Railway!

[@dinandtroost8897]

No there is another one at the Stoom Stichting Nederland the 8811

[@FlyingScott]

@@dinandtroost8897 That's true but it isn't at Rotterdam depot anymore. I went down last autumn and it wasn't there, but I might have missed it coming back.

[@vdk.productions5164]

​@@FlyingScott NS 8811 is now hidden away in the coaches shed at the SSN. It stands there because the main shed was used for the Stoomtreindagen (3 Oktober)

[@dinandtroost8897]

@@FlyingScott no you confust it with another locomotive of the same class the 8826 but this one is now in some kind of restoration

[@Tom-Lahaye]

Many of the Dutch Austerities went into industrial use after NS withdrew them. All of the 3 surviving examples (8811 SSN, 8812 Ribble steam railway and 8826 ZSLM) were used until the early 1970s in the collieries Laura and Julia of Laura&Vereeniging in the southeast of the Netherlands, they had a couple more which were scrapped. The collieries of Laura&Vereeniging were the last to cease operation in the Netherlands in 1976. There was another 8800 which made it in preservation, 8817, but was scrapped in 1979, it was donated to a preserved railway by the last owner, a sugar factory in Roosendaal in 1970.

[@shug831]

I helped to restore No 7 & 19 at Bo'ness railway in the past. Great engines.

[@Petelmrg]

Many memories of these little powerhouses - the ex-LNER locos were a regular sight for me at Harringay West on the ECML in the 1950/60s messing around in the Ferme Park yards. Thanks as usual!

[@johnjephcote7636]

I remember them at Longmoor on the Militery Railway and on BR at Buxton.

[@malcolmgibson6288]

Common as muck but wonderful engines. The NCB ran past my primary school near Walkden so these were part of my early love of railways.

[@connorjohnson7834]

Not to much can go wrong with a good ol' 0-6-0ST

[@FQP-7024]

Jesus such a beautiful design and so many left as well it's astounding.

[@rosswalton2623]

My favourite type of locomotive 😁

[@RailwayManiaNet]

Everyone loves a bucket! Honourable mention should go to 'Jessie' the last surviving 48150 (predecessor of the 50550). The Austerity also has larger wheels (4ft 3in instead of 4ft) than the other types, and they moved the injectors from the backhead.

[@gwrstudios5181]

I do like how your making videos on more modern steam locos I do prefer these to the older ones you have been making vids on but I’ll still watch them and I will always like them

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

This was a one-off aberration, really, at the request of a colleague and supporter. There'll never be videos on Jintys or V1s or GWR Kings etc on here, let alone BR stuff! Glad you like my content, Thanks!

[@marionbloom1218]

Fantastic engines if you ask me, always like to see an Austerity at work. Best place to clock one is at the Kent and East Sussex Railway, working hard storming up the long 1 in 40 Tenterden bank at speed with 5 Mark 1 coaches with a bark like no other engine, just the sort of load conditions they were made for. Hunslet certainly knew what they were doing with this design, as evidenced by the fact they were still churning them out up into the 1960's - 15 years after the main line railways had gone over to diesel for shunting! To me it's the pinnacle of design of the simple, efficient, easy to use, easy to repair (apart from the wretched big end brasses!) robust industrial short-haul wagon mover, which has never been equalled as a steam loco of its type. And good to know that Hunslet have kept their touch - still going strong, servicing and making specialist locomotives in Leeds albeit as part of LH group, having over the years absorbed most of the well known names in industrial loco building from Kerr, Stuart and Co to Manning, Wardle and many others. Very few companies of any size or sort can boast such a continuity of success right up into the modern era. Hats off to the succession of owners and managers who have achieved this. Marion

[@colinlothlorian]

Great choice! Looking forward to visiting the Foxfield this year. I first travelled on it in the mid 70s, passenger trains then ran down to the colliery, and the 1 in 12 to the loco shed there was still in use.

[@liverpoolandmanchesterrailway]

Nothing beats that chuff. It always sounds far more powerful than it actually is.

[@foowashere]

Oh, a bit of an out-of-band upload for you, with such a late engine type. Well told and much appreciated though! 👍 I didn’t know much about these engines and it was interesting to hear about the success of the later modifications . I always hold that it’s better to build small and then scale up, and that seems to hold here too.

[@jsgaming3248]

fun fact: Hunslet Works NCB 66 0-6-0ST is last Industrial steam Locomotive built in U.K. also Hunslet Works No 3806 Wilbert 0-6-0ST named after Rev W Awdry. I like this channel.

[@krimskrams]

great hymn to these un-sung heroes! great segment Mr Dawson!

[@stamrly418]

Love these beasts . Steam better and better when the load on the hook rises. Great machines.

[@garryferrington811]

Nice vid. Interesting history of these useful little engines.

[@MrVinnyh]

I have fired WD190 (& WD200 as a K&ESR loco), on CVR, also all the Austerity's on the K&ESR, plus "Antwerp" 3180 on the NYMR railways, all superb locomotives, but each loco required a different style to fire! to get the best out off them. The one loco off this class was a Vulcan built NCB no.72 (ex CVR) NCB Ashington. as it never worked on the Colne Valley Railway. 😒 Prob the most useful 0-6-0 ever built!!

[@ScotterationRetard]

You know, I've always liked them. Glad there's so many of them left in the world.

[@roberthuron9160]

In the US,there were the USRA series of locomotives,and also wartime designs,that were developed during WW1,and then upgraded in WW2! The Southern O-6-0T's,were a development of the prewar designs,and if you added a headlight,and bell,plus a pilot,you'd have a US industrial tank engine,straight from Alco,Baldwin,or Lima,and of course,Porter,and Vulcan,as they were fairly common and widely used designs! You would be surprised,at the amount of wartime(temporary),designs that are still extant and running! That includes everything from 2 foot Guage,up to Russian 5 foot,and even Indian Broad,and Narrow gauge! This is covering,now,a 100 year life span,so look around there is much to whet the appetite for further videos! Thank for giving Hunslet,a long overdue,attention,and that design,is purely British! Thank you,and I hope,that I didn't bore you silly,as the above mentioned equipment saw,a great deal of use,but is now very overlooked! Thank you again,! 😊

[@edwinsalisbury83]

Fun Fact: the watercress line took hunslet-austerity works number 3781 and replaced the saddle tanks with side tanks. This was in order to make a Thomas for day out with thomas events, as thomas' basis, the E2, has no surviving class members.

[@dfishpool7052]

Thank you Anthony - I found the video very interesting, Having seen these locos at various heritage railways I'd never given them much thought - I'll look more closely at them in the future!

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

Great video...👍

[@bluehairedgirlstudio]

I know they are not the most popular amongst enthusiasts, but it is hands down my favourite locomotive

[@eliotreader8220]

back in 2011 I helped to clean up one of these engines on the Watercress line. they had dressed the engine up as their Thomas the tank engine some years before I worked on the railway for a day. I had a few problems during that day. I was told the driving wheels of these engines was better to clean than those of a Southern west country class engine.

[@declanjoyce8640]

What an engine!

[@laszlokaestner5766]

Fun fact: On the Isle of Wight there are two railways, the "mainline" Island Line and the preserved Havenstreet line. They have an interchange at Smallbrook, a station that is only really accessible by rail. A few years ago one of Island Lines venerable Class 483's (1938 tube stock) failed on the way to Shanklin and limped in to Smallbrook. Being fairly early in the year Havenstreet were not yet open but were running up ready for Easter. It just so happened that one of their Austeritys was at Smallbrook with a rake of Victorian coaches undergoing trials. Happily after a few phone calls the passengers all alighted from the failed 483 and clambered aboard the Austeritys train. A few minutes later they were off to Havenstreet to be met with a bus replacement hastily organised by Island Line. The general manager of Havenstreet Steam Railway joked in the press that the passengers had been rescued by the younger locomotive! Thinking about it it must be one of the few times and certainly the most recent time that an Austerity carried proper fee paying mainline passengers!

[@richardbradley961]

THANK YOU ANTONY. REGARDS R .

[@cogidubnus1953]

Nice commentary as always Anthony!

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

Glad you enjoyed!

[@intercity-mq6qv]

Brilliant loco, and considering the design life, Hunslet designed a around good engine

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

Hunslet, so pretty much bomb proof. Vivat Leodis I say (even if I do play the organ in the church built by Richard Peacock in Gorton. He was a Leeds lad so I'm sure he'll let me off)

[@eliotreader8220]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory I am very familiar with that engine builder because I grew up around their steam locos especially their narrow gauge engines which spent their working life in the Welsh slate Quarries but now pull passenger trains in Cornwall. around 2004 I got the chance to have a footplate ride on one of them. I also knew steam engines built by the Late David Curwen which ran on the now closed Dobwalls forest railway. thankfully one of the Dobwalls engines has remained in the UK

[@mmx3backup606]

Fun Fact: The Hunslet Austerity No.3806 Is Named After Someone Important. The Engine's Name Is Wilbert And Is Named After Former President Of The Dean Forest Railway, Writer And Creator Of Thomas The Tank Engine, The Rev Wilbert Awdry. Wilbert (The Engine) Was Also Featured In A Book Of The Railway Series, Wilbert The Forest Engine.

[@JonatanGronoset]

Plain and simple they may be but beautiful in their own right!

[@eliotreader8220]

they was definitely war horses. I remember seeing Swift sure running on the Bodmin steam railway while living in Cornwall

[@kylemaccauley6065]

To me they are sort of like the vw beetle of the train world mast produced and easy maintenance

[@rml695]

In some of the video footage I heard a rather audible squeak. I was curious what that may have been?

[@ianrx122]

They have a look that just says ready to work what do you need moved. .

[@ScottRuggels]

That has got to be the Cutest Military Implement, ever.

[@harrisonallen651]

The Austerity Engine was meant to have an appearance in The Railway Series, but was scrapped ( No Pun Intended )

[@ralphbalfoort2909]

Why did the British insist on inside cylinders with inside valve gear when outside cylinders with outside valve gear were easier to access for manufacture and maintenance?

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

It puts them as close to the locomotive centre line as possible, therefore making the locomotive more stable by reducing lateral oscillation; it reduces the width of a locomotive therefore increasing route availability; it keeps the cylinders as low as possible therefore lowing the centre of gravity to keep a locomotive more stable on less than optimal track. It also reduces the length of a locomotive which helps keep them more compact and with a shorter wheelbase to help negotiate sharp curves. Furthermore, inside valve gear means it is not exposed, unlikely to get damaged or get bearing surfaces covered with dust, coal dust, ash, etc. All of this is really important when dealing with a restricted loading gauge, or in the case of the Austerities, working on poorly laid track, often with sharp curves. For maintenance all you need to do is run it over an inspection pit.

[@ralphbalfoort2909]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory, you wrote that "it reduces the width of a locomotive therefore increasing route availability." This tells me that you don't have standards that apply across all lines. The US, Canada, and Mexico all agreed long ago to abide by standards set by the Association of American Railroads (formerly the American Railway Association).

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

@@ralphbalfoort2909 That's correct and because the British, and to a lesser extent European, railway networks evolved. In Britain there was no central planning, unlike in Europe. In Britain many routes built in the 1830s, such as the West Coast Mainline from Euston to Preston, and the route from Liverpool to Manchester, and from Manchester to Leeds are still in use today. They were engineered in the 1830s for 1830s rolling stock, which means that the UK has a very limited loading gauge. The Great Western Railway which was laid to Broad Gauge has a larger loading gauge, but in Scotland where many lines were laid to 4ft 6in gauge has a smaller one. In Europe there is the 'Berne Loading Gauge' which allows for through-running between different European countries. Britain's railway infrastructure is almost entirely nineteenth century in date. The last 'new' mainline was the now closed Great Central Mainline from London Marylebone opened in 1899. Not only does this mean that the loading gauge is quite small, especially in comparison with the United States, but also the axle loading can be quite variable as structures built in the 1830s were not neccessarily designed for modern locomotives, train weights and train speeds. A standard British loading gauge was only adopted in 1913: until 'Grouping' in 1923 there were over 130 individual railway companies, each with their own standards, including loading gauge. The modern 'standard' W6 loading gauge was adopted in the UK only in 1951 following Nationalisation of the railways into a single entity requiring standards accross the entire country. But that, of course, only applied to mainline railways and not the thousands of miles of industrial systems then in use, for which locomotives such as the 'Austerities' were intended where loading gauge and indeed track quality and axle loading was often variable. Therefore designing a locomotive with as low an axle load as possible, as short a wheel base and narrow width as possible to allow for the widest possible route availability was the order of the day.

[@jankochanowski3252]

Why internal cylinders on simple locomotive? Is it not simpler sollution to make cylinders outside?

[@DiegoLiger]

Outside cylinders would make the loco wider and therefore reduce route availability. They also make the locomotive 'hunt' from side to side because they are so far from the locos centreline.

[@thomasshaftoe461]

So Wilbert and Sixteen were war veterans?

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

I don't know who they are but if they were War Department Austerities then yes they were veterans.

[@thomasshaftoe461]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory These two engines from that class were featured in the Railway series book Willbert the forest engine.

[@foowashere]

05:12 Impending coal crisis, what’s that about? (Asking as a non-UK viewer.)

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

The UK Govt has banned the sale of lump coal, and has tightened up environmental and clean air regulations regarding fine particulates. It's also banned the sale and domestic burning of wet wood for similar health and environmental reasons. The last coal mines in the UK which produce lump coal suitable for steam locomotives, at Ffos Y Fran in South Wales will close in 2023. This means every steam railway, traction engine owner and heritage site will have to import coal. At present coal prices have increased by £80 per ton since December 2021, and are still going up. It's also likely the UK Govt will slap green tarrifs on imported coal. The daft thing is, in tems of 'green' credentials, importing coal from Russia, South America or Australia is far less 'green' or environmentally friendly than mining coal in the UK, but the Govt needs an easy win and quick political fix to make it look like it's taking climate change seriously. Furthermore, public opinion is firmly of the belief that coal is dirty and polluting - which it is of course. Whilst there is a dispensation in law for Steam Railways etc to burn lump coal, the problem is the increased cost of coal and finding the infrastructure and means to import it.

[@profcraneporter]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory sure to add to that, I think the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch burns around 200 tonnes a year between its 11 engines (nevermind including visiting engines). So they alone are spending upwards of 16 grand. One wonders what the big league railways like the Bluebell, Severn Valley and Great Central are spending

[@derekferguson385]

Meanwhile Biden called for an increase in American coal production recently as gas and oil prices rocket over there.

[@krakenpots5693]

@@derekferguson385 yeah, the Americans aren't affected by climate change, y'know? It's all just commie propaganda, really...

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

@@profcraneporter Coal prices are currently at the $400 /ton mark. Even small lines are seeing a coal bill in excess of £10K a year. Add to that rising energy prices, as well as rising diesel and oil prices it means ticket prices will go up. And, with the cost of living going up due to inflation, that means people will stop coming due to watching the pennies. It'll hit the smaller, poorer railways the hardest and also the poorer families, too.

[@PaulSmith-pl7fo]

Hi Anthony. Did I hear you say they had a working life of only two years!? Doesn't sound very efficient.

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

Designed for a working life of 2 years.Cheap and cheerful. Disposable almost after they'd done their job either in Europe after DDay or working for the MOD, they had no life envisaged for them after 1945

[@eliotreader8220]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory I know that this might be a difficult thing to talk about but I understand the Germans at the time was making Jewish people build steam locomotives. it must have been a contrast to what was happening in England and America with steam locos being built to help the war effort. my Grandmother was an inspector on the Lancaster bombers and later on sorted out the paper work for the food ration books

[@RailwayManiaNet]

I seem to remember reading that a Willys Jeep had an estimated working life of six months, or something along those lines.

[@laszlokaestner5766]

It was war time. Things tend not to last long.

[@wnh7790]

j94

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

Only those sold to the LNER. The War Department and NCB examples are not J94s :-)

[@LMS5935]

Wow I’m quite surprised you doing engines that were built in the 40s now that’s a big-time skip

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

So am I; but I was asked to do it by a colleague. There's one other 40s loco I want to cover, but then I've a huge huge huge soft spot for it,...and its really an 1910s design.

[@LMS5935]

@@AnthonyDawsonHistory well it’s still a big time skip

[@AnthonyDawsonHistory]

@@LMS5935 and compeltely out of my comfort zone. Normal service will resume next week.