Profile: Austerity 0-6-0ST

Oh, a bit of an out-of-band upload for you, with such a late engine type. Well told and much appreciated though! 👍
I didn’t know much about these engines and it was interesting to hear about the success of the later modifications . I always hold that it’s better to build small and then scale up, and that seems to hold here too.

Woah, you almost nailed "Nederlandse Spoorwegen"!
With the NS the Hunslets were their class 8800, allocated to the liberated south, seeing use at such depots as Roosendaal, Maastricht en Eindhoven. They were also regulars on coal and ore trains, and two still exist today, one in the Netherlands at the Zuid-Limburgse Spoorweg Maatschappij and the other went back to England to work at the Ribble Steam Railway!

Not to much can go wrong with a good ol' 0-6-0ST

Thank you Anthony - I found the video very interesting, Having seen these locos at various heritage railways I'd never given them much thought - I'll look more closely at them in the future!

Hi Anthony. Did I hear you say they had a working life of only two years!? Doesn't sound very efficient.

THANK YOU ANTONY. REGARDS R .

I love "Can be lit with a candle in the fire box and pull a house down" lmao truly mighty little locomotives and imo quite stunning, great videos I always love and look forward to them! :)

Common as muck but wonderful engines. The NCB ran past my primary school near Walkden so these were part of my early love of railways.

That has got to be the Cutest Military Implement, ever.

So Wilbert and Sixteen were war veterans?

Brilliant loco, and considering the design life, Hunslet designed a around good engine

Many memories of these little powerhouses - the ex-LNER locos were a regular sight for me at Harringay West on the ECML in the 1950/60s messing around in the Ferme Park yards. Thanks as usual!

What an engine!

Everyone loves a bucket! Honourable mention should go to 'Jessie' the last surviving 48150 (predecessor of the 50550). The Austerity also has larger wheels (4ft 3in instead of 4ft) than the other types, and they moved the injectors from the backhead.

Plain and simple they may be but beautiful in their own right!

Nice commentary as always Anthony!

Why internal cylinders on simple locomotive? Is it not simpler sollution to make cylinders outside?

Wow I’m quite surprised you doing engines that were built in the 40s now that’s a big-time skip

The Austerity Engine was meant to have an appearance in The Railway Series, but was scrapped ( No Pun Intended )

back in 2011 I helped to clean up one of these engines on the Watercress line. they had dressed the engine up as their Thomas the tank engine some years before I worked on the railway for a day. I had a few problems during that day. I was told the driving wheels of these engines was better to clean than those of a Southern west country class engine.

Great choice! Looking forward to visiting the Foxfield this year. I first travelled on it in the mid 70s, passenger trains then ran down to the colliery, and the 1 in 12 to the loco shed there was still in use.

fun fact: Hunslet Works NCB 66 0-6-0ST is last Industrial steam Locomotive built in U.K. also Hunslet Works No 3806 Wilbert 0-6-0ST named after Rev W Awdry.
I like this channel.

great hymn to these un-sung heroes! great segment Mr Dawson!

Jesus such a beautiful design and so many left as well it's astounding.

I have fired WD190 (& WD200 as a K&ESR loco), on CVR, also all the Austerity's on the K&ESR, plus "Antwerp" 3180 on the NYMR railways, all superb locomotives, but each loco required a different style to fire! to get the best out off them. The one loco off this class was a Vulcan built NCB no.72 (ex CVR) NCB Ashington. as it never worked on the Colne Valley Railway. 😒 Prob the most useful 0-6-0 ever built!!

j94

Fun fact: On the Isle of Wight there are two railways, the "mainline" Island Line and the preserved Havenstreet line. They have an interchange at Smallbrook, a station that is only really accessible by rail. A few years ago one of Island Lines venerable Class 483's (1938 tube stock) failed on the way to Shanklin and limped in to Smallbrook. Being fairly early in the year Havenstreet were not yet open but were running up ready for Easter. It just so happened that one of their Austeritys was at Smallbrook with a rake of Victorian coaches undergoing trials. Happily after a few phone calls the passengers all alighted from the failed 483 and clambered aboard the Austeritys train. A few minutes later they were off to Havenstreet to be met with a bus replacement hastily organised by Island Line. The general manager of Havenstreet Steam Railway joked in the press that the passengers had been rescued by the younger locomotive! Thinking about it it must be one of the few times and certainly the most recent time that an Austerity carried proper fee paying mainline passengers!

Fun Fact:
The Hunslet Austerity No.3806 Is Named After Someone Important.
The Engine's Name Is Wilbert And Is Named After Former President Of The Dean Forest Railway, Writer And Creator Of Thomas The Tank Engine, The Rev Wilbert Awdry.
Wilbert (The Engine) Was Also Featured In A Book Of The Railway Series, Wilbert The Forest Engine.

In the US,there were the USRA series of locomotives,and also wartime designs,that were developed during WW1,and then upgraded in WW2! The Southern O-6-0T's,were a development of the prewar designs,and if you added a headlight,and bell,plus a pilot,you'd have a US industrial tank engine,straight from Alco,Baldwin,or Lima,and of course,Porter,and Vulcan,as they were fairly common and widely used designs! You would be surprised,at the amount of wartime(temporary),designs that are still extant and running! That includes everything from 2 foot Guage,up to Russian 5 foot,and even Indian Broad,and Narrow gauge! This is covering,now,a 100 year life span,so look around there is much to whet the appetite for further videos! Thank for giving Hunslet,a long overdue,attention,and that design,is purely British! Thank you,and I hope,that I didn't bore you silly,as the above mentioned equipment saw,a great deal of use,but is now very overlooked! Thank you again,! 😊

Nothing beats that chuff. It always sounds far more powerful than it actually is.

I know they are not the most popular amongst enthusiasts, but it is hands down my favourite locomotive

They have a look that just says ready to work what do you need moved. .

In some of the video footage I heard a rather audible squeak. I was curious what that may have been?

Love these beasts . Steam better and better when the load on the hook rises. Great machines.

I do like how your making videos on more modern steam locos I do prefer these to the older ones you have been making vids on but I’ll still watch them and I will always like them

To me they are sort of like the vw beetle of the train world mast produced and easy maintenance

You know, I've always liked them. Glad there's so many of them left in the world.

Nice vid. Interesting history of these useful little engines.

Great video...👍

Why did the British insist on inside cylinders with inside valve gear when outside cylinders with outside valve gear were easier to access for manufacture and maintenance?

Fun Fact: the watercress line took hunslet-austerity works number 3781 and replaced the saddle tanks with side tanks. This was in order to make a Thomas for day out with thomas events, as thomas' basis, the E2, has no surviving class members.

Fantastic engines if you ask me, always like to see an Austerity at work. Best place to clock one is at the Kent and East Sussex Railway, working hard storming up the long 1 in 40 Tenterden bank at speed with 5 Mark 1 coaches with a bark like no other engine, just the sort of load conditions they were made for. Hunslet certainly knew what they were doing with this design, as evidenced by the fact they were still churning them out up into the 1960's - 15 years after the main line railways had gone over to diesel for shunting! To me it's the pinnacle of design of the simple, efficient, easy to use, easy to repair (apart from the wretched big end brasses!) robust industrial short-haul wagon mover, which has never been equalled as a steam loco of its type.

And good to know that Hunslet have kept their touch - still going strong, servicing and making specialist locomotives in Leeds albeit as part of LH group, having over the years absorbed most of the well known names in industrial loco building from Kerr, Stuart and Co to Manning, Wardle and many others. Very few companies of any size or sort can boast such a continuity of success right up into the modern era. Hats off to the succession of owners and managers who have achieved this.

Marion

My favourite type of locomotive 😁

I helped to restore No 7 & 19 at Bo'ness railway in the past.
Great engines.

My father used to drive these at Longmoor during his National Service