Doll (locomotive)

Locomotive No.4 Doll on the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway.

File:Steam Glow Doll.jpg

Doll on the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway at the Steam Glow event 2008

Doll is a 2 ft (610 mm) gauge 0-6-0 T steam locomotive based at the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway in Bedfordshire.

History

Industry

Doll was built by Andrew Barclay Sons & Co. in 1919 (works number 1641), and was one of three identical engines built for the Sydenham ironstone quarries, near Banbury in Oxfordshire. The quarries were closed in 1925 and the engines were sent to Bilston steelworks, near Wolverhampton. Doll worked there until she was withdrawn from service in 1959.

Preservation

Doll was then preserved near Kenilworth, Warwickshire, and then at Bressingham Steam and Gardens museum, Doll arrived at Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway in 1969.

Doll was temporarily withdrawn from service at the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway in 19??,. at which point she received a new all welded boiler from Bennett Boiler and a full bottom end overhaul at Alan Keef Ltd. The valve gear was fitted with new eccentrics and repined and bushed to remove the lost motion which had developed. It was seen that at some point in the locomotive's past the wear had been compensated for by sawing part of the lap from the slide valves and filling in notches in the reversing quadrant near mid-gear. After repair the engine returned to LBNGR and was in regular use from 2004 before the boiler certificate expired. It is now undergoing another overhaul.

Design

Doll has Stephenson valve gear.