35011 General Steam Navigation (SR 21C11 & BR 35011)

35011 General Steam Navigation in Woodham's scrapyard at Barry - July 1968.jpg

21C11 was built at Eastleigh in 1944 and rebuilt there in 1959.

The locomotive entered service in December 1944 in wartime black and was based at Nine Elms.

It was renumbered 35011 following nationalisation of the railways in 1948.

BR motive power depot allocations since 1948.

Date Arrived	Depot
January 1948	Nine Elms
January 1954	Bournemouth
May 1954	Nine Elms
May 1957	Exmouth Junction
February 1960	Bournemouth

35011 was withdrawn from service in February 1966 and sold to Woodham Brothers at Barry for scrap. By then it had completed 1,069,128 miles whilst in service.

It was subsequently purchased for preservation and left Barry in March 1983.

It was then placed in store in Preston Park at Brighton before going to RAF Binbrook.

35011 was stored at the site of RAF Binbrook until 2007 when it spent a short period at West Somerset Restoration for a very brief spell in Williton Works where contract work was carried out. (West Somerset Restoration is managed and funded by the West Somerset Railway Association (WSRA) and is based in the Swindon Shed, which is a Grade II Listed building at Williton Station on the West Somerset Railway (WSR). The Swindon Shed was originally situated on the site of the Swindon Railway Works before it was moved to Williton in 1991.)

Following this 35011 moved to a private site at Sellindge in Kent where it is stored pending long-term restoration. There were suggestions that lack of funds was holding this process up and consideration was being given to reverting the locomotive to an un-rebuilt form.

The private owner of 35011 has transferred the ownership of the locomotive to the General Steam Navigation Locomotive Restoration Society in 2016. A new home was then sought for the engine with a view to restoring it to its original pre rebuilt condition. The project also received a boost when an offer of spare parts from another Bullied restoration project was made.

Early in 2017 an appeal was launched to pay for a new crank axle. The crank has been missing since April 1966 when it was used to repair 35026 Lamport & Holt Line. A pair from a light pacific (West Country or Battle of Britain Class) to allow 35011 to be towed to the scrapyard at Barry.

In November 2018 it was announced that discussions were going on which could result in the dismantled locomotive being moved to allow further dismantling to take place. It was also noted that if a plan to move the locomotive is agreed an appeal will be raised to cover the estimated £7,000 cost of the move.

In March 2019 the owners announced that the locomotive will in future be based on the Swindon and Cricklade Railway. The first task was then to raise the £9,000 which was estimated to be the cost of moving the unrestored locomotive. The locomotive completed the move in April 2019.

The owners hope to complete the work on the rolling chassis by 2025.

In August 2019 it was reported that stripping down the locomotive had commenced in earnest.

In April 2020 it was disclosed that the boiler lift which had been planned for June 2020 was being delayed due to the Corvid-19 pandemic. The boiler was lifted off the frames for the first time since 1959 in October 2020.

It was reported that the locomotive is being “un-rebuilt” into its original air-smoothed condition.

It was reported that the locomotive is being “un-rebuilt” into its original air-smoothed condition. As the original design was known to suffer from the exhaust drifting and obscuring the driver’s vision studies are being undertaken to see how to overcome the problem.

In August 2021 the General Steam Navigation Locomotive Restoration Society (GSNLRS) announced that the work to trailing truck would be restored by North Norfolk Railway Engineering. The trailing truck on 35011 is the only surviving one of a design fitted to some Merchant Navy class locomotives. The GSNLRS regard the restoration of the trailing truck as a significant step towards restoring the locomotive to its original air smoothed casing state.

The immediate aim of the society owning the locomotive is to complete running chassis by the end of 2026. The target after this is to have the boiler ready for fitting back onto the frames in 2031.