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1033 NSW Rail Museum, Thirlmere |
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Freshly repainted 1033 on display at Trainworks
on 6 March 2011.
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Builder |
Beyer Peacock & Company, Manchester |
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Builder’s Number & Year |
2661 of 1885 |
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Wheel Arrangement |
2-4-0T |
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No. in class |
18 |
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This
locomotive was built by Beyer Peacock & Company under an order for twelve
2-4-0T locomotives for Sydney suburban passenger duties, becoming the New
South Wales Government Railways (NSWGR) F(351)
class. These were followed by a further six locomotives supplied by Sydney
manufacturer Henry Vale and Company, bolstering the class to a total of 18 units.
It had originally been numbered F 355 and received the number 1033 among the
‘X10’ grouping of miscellaneous and obsolete locomotives & cranes in the
NSWGR's 1924 renumbering scheme. The F(351) class 2-4-0T locomotives followed the design of earlier
machines supplied by Beyer Peacock & Co from 1864 to private railway
companies on the Isle of Wight. The South Australian Railways P-class
locomotives (represented by P 117 at
the National Railway Museum, Port Adelaide) were also members of this Beyer Peacock
& Co design family. The F(351) class were removed from Sydney suburban passenger
workings following a fatal accident at Sydenham in 1901, following which they
were relegated to workshop and depot shunting duties. Ten were sold into
industrial service, including F 360 which worked on the Wolgan Valley Railway
to Newnes, but none of those sold in industry survived into preservation.
Sister locomotive 1042 was also
preserved after finishing its career as the Cardiff Workshops shunter and is
one of the Henry Vale & Company supplied locomotives. 1033
finished its days as a workshop shunter and mobile steam plant at the NSWGR
Eveleigh Railway Workshops in Sydney. It was statically restored to a high
standard in lined green livery by the NSWRTM and had been a prime exhibit at
the entrance to their Thirlmere site when that museum opened in 1975. However
subsequent years of open-air display at Thirlmere caused 1033's paintwork to
fade and the polished brasswork to tarnish. Her old boiler lagging also
needed to be professionally removed. 1033 received cosmetic restoration and
repainting to lined black livery in 2011 in time for the opening of the new ‘Trainworks’
museum at Thirlmere (now the NSW Rail Museum), and greets
visitors as they head into the main exhibition hall. Alex
Grunbach's authoritative book ‘A Compendium of New South Wales Steam
Locomotives’ provides a good history of the F(351)
class and disposal details for those sold into industrial service. Also
included is information about the Sydenham crash of 1901 and subsequent
investigation, which struck the webmaster as interesting reading with modern
parallels! Another
surviving portion of the F(351) class is the boiler
of Junee roundhouse shunter 1036 / Lo 32 ‘Fanny’, which is fitted to
locomotive 1076. |
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1033 displayed at the NSW Rail Transport Museum, Thirlmere on
17 March 2003.
1033 wears lined green livery with a polished brass dome
cover, but the paint and brasswork had weathered over the years of display.
This fine model of 1036 (bearing an
earlier number ‘Lo 23’) was seen at Junee Roundhouse Museum on 11 June 2025.
The chimney is of a
very tall, tapered design, possibly as originally delivered.
The photograph display
above the model documents 1036’s infamous excursion into the turntable pit at
Junee!
References
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a |
‘A
Compendium of New South Wales Steam Locomotives’ compiled by Alex Grunbach,
published by the Australian Railway Historical
Society, New South Wales Division, 1989. pp.85 |
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b |
‘Steam
Locomotive Data’ July 1974 edition, compiled by J. H. Forsyth for
the Public Transport Commission of NSW. |
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c |
Webmaster's observation or comment |
Page updated: 29 April 2026
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