Taken on 16/02/19; a day when a few timings fell neatly into place. The snow at the start of February meant the G3 15K at Guildford was postponed until the 16th, which coincidentally was the day services recommenced on the Mid-Hants. On the drive back from Guildford, I stopped at M&4M as No. 76017 was waiting to depart and then managed to get to Ropley in time to see No. 41312 arrive. All that was left was a brief stop at Eastleigh and then on to home!
No. 41312
41312 was built at Crewe in 1952 and was first based at Faversham, then Ashford in May 1959, before being moved to Barnstaple Junction in January 1960 where it worked over the Torrington branch, putting in some appearances on the Ilfracombe and Exeter line.
In March 1963 it was reallocated to Brighton where it spent a year before moving on to Bournemouth where it worked over the Swanage and Lymington branches. 41312 performed the last steam service on the Lymington branch in April 1967. The last 3 months of its career were spent at Nine Elms acting as a station shunter for Waterloo. It was finally withdrawn from service on the 3rd July 1967 and sold to Woodham Brothers at Barry for scrap.
It arrived at the scrapyard in January 1968 and stayed there until August 1974 when it was acquired by the Caerphilly Railway Society.
41312 was then bought by John Jones in 1995 and moved to Ropley, Mid-Hants Railway for its major overhaul.
It was in steam by 2000 and operated until withdrawn for a ten-year major overhaul in 2009.
After being out of service for a number of years 41312 is currently under overhaul on the Mid Hants Railway. The boiler had a successful steam test in October 2015 and the locomotive is now in service again on the Mid Hants Railway.
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