- Class: Q
- Designer: Richard Maunsell
- Wheels: 0-6-0
- Built: 1939
- Numbers Carried: 541, 30541
- Last Overhaul Completed: April 2015
- Previously Operational: 1983-1993
- Last Operational: January 2023
- Current Status: Under overhaul
- Owned By: The Maunsell Locomotive Society
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Built as a basic goods engine to replace life-expired pre-grouping locomotives, this was Maunsell’s final design as Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Southern Railway. It could be described as a competent though not outstanding engine. Bulleid, Maunsell’s successor, improved the draughting arrangements with a multiple blast-pipe arrangement and new chimney, and it was in this condition that 541 was withdrawn from service in 1964. Sent to Barry scrapyard, like many other locos there it escaped the cutter’s torch and was bought by preservationists.
In 1973 it was moved to Ashchurch in Gloucestershire and moved on in 1978 to the Bluebell, where its owning group merged with those of U-class No. 1618 and S15 No. 847 to form the Maunsell Locomotive Society. The blast pipe and chimney arrangement have been further modified using BR Class 4 components, in the same way as BR had done to some of the class. This has the advantage of returning the locomotive visually to very close to its original form. Major restoration work saw it return to steam in 1983, operating for the following decade in Maunsell livery as No. 541.
Its previous overhaul started in July 2011, and the Loco Works Working Group, who started by overhauling the tender, also assisted with work on the loco itself. It returned to service on 28 April 2015, carrying BR livery as No. 30541, and received a valve and piston exam in 2017. Its cylinders were re-bored and steam pipes and piston rods replaced early in 2022. Firebox defects however saw it withdrawn from service a couple of years earlier than had been hoped. Being in mechanically fairly good condition, but requiring work on tyres and a new tender tank, the plan is to do the work required quickly, in part using off-site contractors, to which end the locomotive (but not the tender) left the Bluebell on 6 July 2023. A new tender body is also being constructed off-site under contract, and the tender chassis is being overhauled in our own workshops.
→ Find out more
→ News of current overhaul
→ The Maunsell Locomotive Society
