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Stenlake Publishing - Hunslet 1215 – A War Veteran’s Story


Hunslet 1215 – A War Veteran’s Story



Author : I. G. Hughes
ISBN : 9780853617099
Cover : paperback
Price : £7.95

Hunslet 4-6-0T No. 1215 was one of a class of locomotives built to the order of the British War Department for use by what became the Directorate of Light Railways. This organisation used 600mm gauge railways to supply the trenches by bridging the gap between the end of the standard gauge railways and the relatively static front line of the First World War on the western front. They were used to move huge quantities of troops, casualties, shells, rations, and other supplies over a network that, at its full extent, included over 3,000 miles of track.

Apart from being one of the largest classes of one single type of narrow gauge locomotive built within the UK, the vast majority were also completed within the space of three years. A total of 155 of them were ordered by the War Department from the Hunslet Engine Co. at a time when Hunslet were also constructing howitzers, shells, and machinery to make shells, as well as a limited number of other locomotives. By comparison, in peacetime they averaged about 40 locomotives of all types per year.

The other remarkable feature of these machines is the diverse locations in which they, and nine post-war, ended up. From hydro-electric schemes of the Scottish Highlands, to the pampas of Argentina, Harrowgate gasworks to Australian canefields, Oxfordshire ironstone to Palestinian power stations, Nepalese forests and Chilean nitrate mines, all made good use of these neat little locomotives. Happily 1215 survives and resides at Apedale Heritage Centre.

A5 format, 56 pages, 43 illustrations.

Hunslet 1215 – A War Veteran’s Story
£7.95