A second engine for the Standard 4 Locomotive Society
With restoration well in hand on 75078, the Standard 4 Locomotive Society turned its attentions to purchasing a second locomotive and in 1975 the Society purchased the smaller, but versatile, Standard Class 2 78022, although it would be another 18 years before restoration was completed.
13 years on British Railways metals but 45 years on the KWVR (2020)
Completed by the British Railways in 1954, 78022 had a nomadic life before settling down in West Yorkshire.
Data File
Built: 1954 Darlington
Boiler Pressure: 200 psi
Tractive Effort: 18,510 lbf
Weight: 49.25 tons engine; 36.85 tons tender
Valve Gear: Walschaerts
Cylinders: 16½” x 24″ Outside
Numbers carried during working career: BR 78022
Life on British Railways
This class of engine is a direct development of the LMS-designed lvatt Class 2MT 2-6-0 This loco, of course, is BR built and has Standard British Railways fittings such as injector clack valves, regulator, and so on. This class was built at the former LNER workshops at Darlington. By the end of production there were 65 Standard examples in traffic working alongside 128 engines of the LMS design. The new Standard design was ideally suited to shunting work where it may not return to shed for several days or secondary passenger or freight train duties involving over 50 miles operational requirement. Medium distance work could be handled far better by this Standard tender locomotive than their tank engine counterparts due to having a tender which gave increased coal and water capacity.
This class of engine had a wide working sphere of operations with only the Southern Region not having any members of this class allocated. Although quite archaic in appearance, these locomotives have quite a number of ‘modern’ design features and principles including a rocking fire grates, hopper ash pans and the widespread use of grease lubrication.
No. 78022 was delivered new from Darlington on 28 February 1954 to Millhouses Depot in Sheffield where it remained until the shed closed in 1962. As steam usage declined across the network 78022 started a nomadic tour of the country being allocated to the following depots: Doncaster, Stratford (London), March (Cambridgeshire), Barrow, Aintree and finally Lostock Hall (Preston) from where the engine was withdrawn from traffic in February 1967.
From there 78022, like over 200 other locomotives, was dispatched to the Barry scrapyard of Woodham Bros. in South Wales to await its destiny with a cutters torch, a destiny not to be fulfilled.
From scrapyard to life in West Yorkshire
Encouraged by the progress made with the rebuild of 75078, the Standard 4 Locomotive Society returned to Barry in 1975, purchasing 78022, a locomotive ideally suited to the Worth Valley branch. It was offloaded at Haworth on the 11th June 1975 and laid aside to await the day when restoration would begin, although it was to be another 18 years before this locomotive was restored to running order.
After laying untouched in Haworth Yard, 78022 was eventually the recipient of an extensive restoration from Barry condition which was completed in 1993, the locomotive proving popular with footplate crews, being capable of handling five coach services on off peak turns of duty. Following the successful fitting of a Giesel ejector to the now departed 34092 ‘City of Wells’, the Society experimented with fitting one to 78022.
Having languished at Oxenhope since withdrawal in 2003, 78022 came to the head of the overhaul queue in 2015, was moved to Haworth where stripping commenced to determine the extent of work required. That work has been thorough and this useful locomotive returned to service in November 2018 in a lined out BR green livery.