Steam Locomotives: Exhibit No. 4
‘CAMBRAI’ 0-6-0 Side Tank
Cylinders: 2 (300 mm diameter × 450 mm stroke)
Track gauge: 1 metre
Built by: L. Corpet of Paris in 1888. Works No. 493
Working life: Originally ran from 1888 to 1936 as No. 5 on the Chemins de Fer du Cambresis carrying the name of ‘CLARY’; it was later renamed ‘CAMBRAI’. The C.F.D. Cambresis was a secondary (i.e. feeder or branch) line and ‘Cambrai’ would have been used on both freight and passenger work. In 1936 she was sold to Thomas Ward Ltd, who in turn sold the locomotive to the Loddington Ironstone Company near Kettering.
The locomotive worked at Loddington quarries until 1956, when it was transferred to the Waltham Iron Company in Leicestershire. It worked there alongside another more modern Corpet 0-6-0 tank engine, named ‘Nantes’, until closure of operations in 1959.
History to date: In 1959, ‘CAMBRAI’ was presented to the Talyllyn Narrow Gauge Railway Museum Trust, going to Towyn, North Wales, in 1960. In 1975 it was transferred to A. Keef of Oxford, where the locomotive was stripped down but only limited restoration work was carried out.
‘CAMBRAI’ was moved to Irchester in 1983 and is being rebuilt to ‘static’ condition, with the long-term aim of a return to steam – when finances permit. A small point of interest, is that ‘CAMBRAI’ now carries the chimney from the scrapped engine ‘Nantes’.
This engine is an extremely rare example of a French-built locomotive used in British Industry.
Present owner: Narrow Gauge Railway Trust, Towyn. On long-term loan to the Irchester Narrow Gauge Railway Trust.