The London, Midland and Scottish Railway Fowler 3F is a tank engine which was built between 1924-1931 in considerably large numbers. The "Jinty" is considered to be one of the most popular, recognizable, and reliable types of tank engines built in Britain. Many were purchased by the London, Midland, and Scottish Railway, (LMS) and were soon reclassified, renumbered, and soon withdrawn in the late 1950's by British Railways (BR). The first of the Midland Railways' (MR) Johnson Class 2441 tanks - on which the Jinties were based - was withdrawn in 1954, and the last by 1966. The first of the Fowler 3F tanks were scrapped in 1959; the last were withdrawn in 1967 after a 40+ year careered and friends.
Career[]
In the 1940's-1950's, some of the "Jintys" tank engines were allocated to Bromsgrove station, which was at the foot of the Lickey Incline, one of the steepest railway worked inclines in the British Isles. The gradient on the Lickey was so steep that George Stephenson warned that such a gradient would prove unworkable for steam traction; this, however, was proved wrong by the "Jinty" tanks. These tank engines were often paired in twos or threes (and on rare occasions, even in fours) and banked mainline passenger and goods train up the incline to the now closed Blackwell station, a-top of the hill.
On the Lickey Incline, they worked alongside the former Midland Railway (MR) Lickey Banker, known famously as "Big Bertha", and even a few elderly Johnson 3F 0-6-0's, but were replaced in the mid-to-late 1950's by a few Great Western (GWR) Hawksworth 9400 Class 0-6-0PT Pannier Tanks and a couple of BR Standard 9F Class Decapods until 1964, when the line became - and still remains to be - diesel-worked, and Bromsgrove shed closed. Along with the Lickey, the "Jintys" were a common sight in many stations around the UK shunting both passenger and freight trains, along with working light goods itself.
At the beginning of WWII, ten examples were recovered by the War Department which used them for war effort in France in 1940. During the Occupation of France, and due to a lack of steam engines with the requisitions of materials by the germans, the SNCF retrieved the Jinties and gave them the registrations 030.TW.21 to 27 and 42 to 44. They were mainly used for shunting duties onto the Northern and Western regions. The Jinties form the Northen region, were located near Lille, while the engines from the Western region were attached to depots of Rennes and Savenay. Five engines remain in France until 1948, as five other examples were destroyed or missing during the course of the war, the engines number 21 to 25. The five surviving engines, were given to the British Railway, which gives them the numbers 47589, 47607, 47611, 47659 and 47660. They were all withdrawn between 1961 and 1966.
Preservation[]
Thanks to their large numbers, late withdrawals and renowned performance, a total of nine "Jintys" have been preserved, plus the frames and boiler of #47564. As of today, nearly all of the preserved "Jintys" have seen operation at one point or another, with the sole exception of #47445, withdrawn from BR service in April 1966, and currently undergoing restoration on the Midland Railway heritage line at Butterley.
KWVR 3F Jinty -47279
In Popular Culture[]
The real Jinty locomotive was in Thomas & Friends: The Railway Series by the Reverend W. Awdry.
Trivia[]
- 47601 runaway