30065 (WD 1968, SR 65, BR DS 237 & BR 30065)

Built in 1943 by the Vulcan Iron Works, Pennsylvania, this engine became War Department No. 1968. After store at Newbury Racecourse station and subsequent purchase by the SR, it became plain 65, and went to work in Southampton Docks in November 1947. Becoming BR 30065, it remained a shunter at Southampton Docks until 1962, when ousted by diesel shunters. Grabbed by one of the engineering departments, the engine was latterly renumbered DS237, named Maunsell, and made its way to Ashford Wagon Works in November 1963. It remained in use there alongside classmate No. DS238 (formerly 30070), until being taken out of service permanently in April 1967. Sister engine DS238 was decommissioned in June of the same year, and in March 1968 both were sold to Woodham Brothers, South Wales. Dragged dead in tow from Ashford, bound for the scrapyard on Barry Island, the pair were declared unfit for further travel at Tonbridge, due to developing hot bearings. Here, they were dumped on the site of the closed engine shed for six months, until being moved to Rolvenden, on the Kent & East Sussex Railway, in September 1968. They had been re-sold to the preserved line in the previous month.

Numbered as 22 on the Kent & East Sussex Railway was back in service in 1974 and four years later during overhaul exchanged boilers with DS238 and re-entered service in 1981. Various mechanical problems occurred and were overcome before the boiler certificate expired and the locomotive was taken out of service in 1990. Another extensive overhaul was undertaken and it re-entered service as Southern Railway 65 in 1997. In 2002 a new firebox was required which was fitted and a further overhaul undertaken which resulted in the locomotive returning to service in 2008.

The boiler certificate expired in February 2017 after which the locomotive was placed in store whilst it awaited an overhaul.

In mid 2018 the locomotive was taken into the works at Rolvenden and dismantling of it started as the first stage of its ten year overhaul.