35005 Canadian Pacific (SR 21C5, BR s21C5 & 35005)

35005 Canadian Pacific at Eastleigh Works Open Day - May 2009.jpg

21C5 Canadian Pacific was built in 1941 at Eastleigh Works. It later carried the number s21C5 until the railways were nationalised when it became British Railways number 35005. It was the only Merchant Navy class locomotive to be numbered with the s prefix by Southern Railway but this was only between May and June 1948.

Between March 1948 and April 1951 it was fitted with a Berkeley mechanical stoker which is the same type that were later tried on standard class 9F locomotives. It generally made little difference to performance but increased the already high coal consumption of the engine.

It was one of the engines which took part in the trials at Rugby in 1952 on the static test facility.

BR motive power depot allocations since 1948.

Date Arrived	Depot
January 1948	Exmouth Junction
August 1948	Nine Elms
April 1951	Exmouth Junction
March 1954	Nine Elms
November 1959	Bournemouth
August 1964	Weymouth

It was rebuilt in May 1959 and in this state managed to record a speed of 105mph whilst going down Winchester Bank in May 1965.

The following information has been supplied by the Fireman on that run – Dave Wilson.

“The crew on the 105mph run, which took place on My 15^th 1965, was driver Gordon Hooper and fireman Dave Wilson, both of Nine Elms; also on the footplate was “technical” Inspector Brian Smith. The train was the 21:20 waterloo-Weymouth and the load was 9 + 1 van of 365 tons. Also established was a record, which still stands, for the start from Waterloo to the stop at Basingstoke of 41 mins 30 sec net and 43 min 46 sec actual*. There is a detailed account of the run, from the footplate and written by the fireman, which can be found in Part IV of his book “In Memory” – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07NK31X38”.

* The difference between the actual and the net times was due to a permanent way slack at Wimbledon.

In October 1965 it was withdrawn from Weymouth shed after running for 976,806 miles whilst in service and sold for scrap to Woodham Brothers at Barry and arrived there in January 1966. It was the oldest of the Bullied Pacifics sent for cutting up at Barry. 35005 stayed at Barry until March1973 when it was the first MN to be rescued.

It was initially bought privately and sent to Steamtown at Carnforth but was sold to Andrew Naish in 1989 and moved to the Great Central railway where it steamed for the first time in preservation in November 1990 at Loughborough.

It was used on main line steam specials between 1998 and 2002 after being overhauled at Tyseley in 1998 and for part of this time it was painted in British Railways blue livery.

It was sold to Steam Dreams proprietor, Marcus Robertson in 2001 but was confined to the Mid Hants Railway after it burst a boiler tube the following year whilst on the main line at Paddock Wood.

The locomotive was purchased by the Mid Hants Railway Preservation Society in 2006, withdrawn in 2008 when the boiler certificate expired. It was taken to the former Southern Region Railway Works at Eastleigh, which are now owned by Arlington Fleet Services Ltd, in 2011 to be stored under cover.

The overhaul is being undertaken under the directions of the Ropley Loco Department of the Mid Hants Railway. In 2013 a small crew cleared the site which was quite an undertaking as the floor in this part of the building is made up of thousands of 100 year old wooden blocks about the size of a brick that had to be moved. A section of temporary track was then laid by the Mid Hants Permanent Way department.

The first task of the overhaul was to strip the locomotive down so that by 2014 the engine had almost been completely dismantled.

In 2015 the Mid Hants Railway secured stage one approval for its £894,700 application (90% of total eligible project costs) for Heritage Lottery Funds (HLF) towards the restoration to steam of Merchant Navy 35005 Canadian Pacific and two Bulleid coaches. This decision brings with it the award of a £44,700 grant to assist development of the scheme.

The first-round pass means the project meets HLF criteria for funding and represents an endorsement of the outline proposals. The MHR now has up to two years to submit fully developed proposals to compete for a firm award. Mid-Hants Railway Ltd and Mid-Hants Railway Preservation Society Ltd aim to submit the full application later this year. If approved, work should commence early in 2015 aimed at completion by the end of 2017.

After stripping the locomotive at Ropley it was revealed that the boiler was in far worse condition than anticipated. The level of corrosion means that the steel inner box needs to be replaced which adds an additional cost of about £120,000 to the cost of restoring the engine. Although the overhaul is being assisted by the grant of £895,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund additional funds are being sought. The extra work is anticipated to add another twelve months to the time it takes to have the locomotive running again so the expected date of steaming was revised to 2019.

In mid 2018 the date by which the locomotive would return to traffic was amended to mid 2021 or sooner.

In June 2019 the front bogie and trailing truck wheels were fitted. The driving wheels had been fitted to the frames in September 2017.

In November 2020 it was reported that the replacement inner firebox had been fitted into the outer wrapper. This is the first all-new inner firebox to be produced for a merchant Navy class locomotive in preservation.

In April 2024 the locomotive was moved to the Mid Hants Railway after spending over ten years in storage at Eastleigh. No date was set for the completion of the overhaul .