The Real History of my Helmdon Terrier

The Edgehill Light Railway was a short lived mineral line at Edgehill near Kineton, Warwickshire. They purchased two ex-LBSC Terriers; A1X 673 Deptford in 1919 and A1 674 Shadwell in 1920. Alas by 1925 EHLR was closed and the Terriers were abandoned under canvas sheets at the bottom of the quarry incline. Why they were not sold or reassigned to other quarries in which Colonel Stephens had interests is not clear. More info on the facts can be found at Wikipedia List of LB&SCR A1 locos, The Terrier Trust, and Colonel Stephens Terriers. The real story is that by the outbreak of World War II both locos were considered beyond rescue, and they still stood where they had been left to rot 14 years earlier. From Colonel Stephens Terriers; "The lower part of The EHLR was requisitioned by the government during the Second World War for a munitions depot known as C A D Kineton, and this isolated the locomotives. Perhaps, as a consequence, they escaped wartime scrap drives and remained untouched until they finally fell to the scrap man in April and May 1946."

The EHLR line connected to the Stratford on Avon and Midland Junction Railway (SMJR) which was officially formed in 1909. Upon formation the SMJR took over several smaller companies which ran services from Stratford on Avon to Northampton, and Olney via Towcester. Soon they took on the N&BJR too, running the line from Towcester to Banbury Merton Street. The locos were serviced at Stratford shed and had running rights over the lines, perhaps they also traversed to Northampton with iron ore trains? There is a possible clue on the SMJR.info website; "A well known character on the line [SMJR] was a guard known as 'Old Worcester'... he was in charge of a special working taking 'a small locomotive', probably an iron ore line engine, even possibly one of the Edge Hill Terriers up the line, when the train locomotive broke away."

Some excellent photo's of the abandoned quarry can be found at Warwickshire Railways: EHLR Railway and Warwickshire Railways: Railway Art has this fabulous Barry Freeman painting "Out to Grass" showing EHLR No:2 in 1946.

"Out to Grass" ©Barry Freeman

What is a Terrier Doing at Helmdon?

So there's some history of it, but how come there's a Terrier at my Helmdon?

The text that follows is pure fabrication! EHLR No:2 (formerly Shadwell) was purchased by Helmdon Stone Ltd in August 1925 for the princely sum of £700, promptly painted dark blue and renumbered No:5. It was the company's first standard gauge loco, purchased to work the sidings near Helmdon Station (by then LMS). 'Norman' as (s)he became known, shunted in the yard at Helmdon Station, where cut stone was taken from the small cage trucks and hand loaded into 3-plank wagons. The loco had running rights over the former N&BJR line between Towcester and Cockley Brake and from there on the Buckingham branch to Banbury, where he was a regular in the yard dropping and collecting quarry wagons.

In 1940 No:5 was seconded to the LMS helping in the war effort by shunting ammunition trains at Banbury. No:5 was assigned LMS number 16120. It's sister, the former 'Deptford', was pressed into service at the munitions facility of CAD Kineton. Being assigned to the War Department, no running number record exists. Despite their good fortune at being rescued the two engines never again worked together. 16120 was withdrawn from service in June 1946.

After a short legal wrangle, Helmdon's loco was returned to the quarry in August 1946. It was not fully repainted for many years, and continued to carry the number 16120 well into the 1960's. Running rights over the line to Banbury were withdrawn soon after nationalisation early in 1948. In the summer of 1947 Norman was involved in an accident at the quarry. As a consequence of the accident, the buffers were replaced with Wooden blocks, and the buffer beams were repainted, unfortunately the rest of the paintwork remained somewhat worse for wear. Norman was sold into the new preservation movement in 1968 and though in fine fettle with his seemingly indestructible boiler (he is still in unmodified 'A1' form) continues to wear the scars of his quarry days.

So there you go, a Terrier at Helmdon.

CONTENT