No.1 ‘Juno’

Dorrigo Steam Railway & Museum

Juno in storage at Dorrigo on 24 January 2004.

Juno is nominally operable, having been occasionally used as shunter at Rhondda Colliery in the 1980’s.

The overlarge buffer faces speak of tightly curved sidings, where smaller faces are prone to buffer lock.

Builder	Andrew Barclay, Sons & Co, Kilmarnock, Scotland
Builder’s Number & Year	1739 of 1922
Wheel Arrangement	0-4-0ST

‘Juno’ is an industrial shunting loco from the well-known Scottish builders Andrew Barclay, Sons & Co, turned out by their factory in Kilmarnock, Scotland. It was built to a standard Andrew Barclay saddle-tank design with cylinders of 16” diameter and 24” stroke. Together with sister b/n 1738 it was built to stock with completion dates recorded as 21 December 1922. The pair were initially supplied to the Consolidated Construction Co Ltd, London and sent for building work at Clydesdale Steelworks, Mossend, Scotland, where they were known as No.5 (b/n 1738) and No.6 (b/n 1739). After about one year of work the pair returned to Andrew Barclay for refurbishment and resale.

Both went to Australia, b/n 1738 going to Goninan & Co, Newcastle, and b/n 1739 being sold circa 1925 to Vickers-Commonwealth Steel Products for their works at Waratah, Newcastle. At Comsteel it became No.1 ‘Juno’ – the name of a Roman goddess, the protector and special counsellor of the state – a heavenly name for a humble shunting locomotive!

‘Juno’ spent her remaining working life at the Comsteel plant and was maintained as spare loco after a diesel arrived in 1972. Still fully operable, Juno was sold into the Hunter Valley Steam Railway & Museum (HVSR&M) collection in 1976 and indeed the little loco saw some further use shunting exhibits at their Rhondda Colliery storage site.

With the Hunter Valley Steam Railway & Museum subsequently shifting focus to the Dorrigo branch on the NSW North Coast (and hence renamed as the Dorrigo Steam Railway & Museum), Juno was transferred to their new site at Dorrigo station. Here Juno has remained in storage and in company of another standard Andrew Barclay 16” shunter, the ex-Lysaghts loco known as ‘Marian’ (b/n 2224 of 1947). I believe Juno remains complete and nominally operable, although modern regulations would require full inspection, documentation and certification before it could ever steam again.

A scanned print view of Juno stored at Rhondda Colliery circa 1983 (with a young webmaster in the cab).

The large buffer faces look like they have taken some knocks and been involved in a few tangles!

References

a	Kramer, J. 'The Dorrigo Steam Railway & Museum - an Illustrated Guide', published by the Dorrigo Steam Railway & Museum, 1987.
b	Wikipedia page for Andrew Barclay, Sons & Co, retrieved 2 March 2021
c	Industrial Locomotive Society website, Locomotive Works Lists for Andrew Barclay Sons & Co, Retrieved 3 March 2021

Page updated: 13 March 2021

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