‘The Forgotten Standard’, by Ian Crowder, 7th October 2025
7th October 2025 Meeting.
Our speaker this month was Ian Crowder from the GWSR who gave us a splendid presentation on the story of the Toddington Standard, this being 4MT 2-6-0 76077, its history and where we are up to with its preservation. Ian is a director of the restoration project. The first part of the show concerned the service career of 76077. The class of 115 locomotives was built at Horwich and Doncaster and this Horwich example entered traffic in December 1956 at Sutton Oak shed where it was to spend its entire working career. When that shed closed in June 1967, it was reallocated to Springs Branch for its last six months. It was not exactly a glamorous class, but 76077's moment of glory was to haul the LCGB's Warrington and Widnes Brake Van Tour which visited numerous sidings and freight lines on 5th August 1967. 76077 was withdrawn in December 1967 and, along with three other former 8G shedmates 76079, 76080 (the one that got away) and 76084, ended up in Barry, taking three months to reach there. There it stayed until May 1987 when it was purchased by Chris Hinton and moved to Toddington.
The second part of the evening was a real eye-opener on just how many hundreds of components, from the very large to the tiny, go into the making of a working steam loco. Some of these are quite exquisite and it is a shame they are hidden from view when serving their purpose! Ian brought along some examples to show us. By 1987 76077 was in a pitiful state, having lost most of its parts. But the boiler (originally on 76007) was sound. After some initial work, the project was put on hold, and the loco was stored as a kit of parts in a siding north of Toddington for 30 years! The visit of classmate 76017 to the railway in 2017 sparked renewed interest and Chris Hinton was persuaded to sell the loco to the current team so that restoration could begin. A very thorough job is being made of making new high-quality components and where weaknesses are found in existing large items, such as the boiler and cab, the policy is to replace a whole section with new metal, rather than patch up. The aim is, that as a result, 76077 will be a sound loco for the next 30 years or so. A new tender is required, and this will be to the BR2A design: a set of wheels has been acquired from the Bluebell Railway. It is hoped the first steaming will be in 2027.
Rob Freeman, Branch Committee Member