
| Driving Wheels | 4ft 7ins |
| Weight | 88tons 17cwt |
| Boiler Pressure | 180psi |
| Cylinders | Outside – 20in x 26in |
| Tractive Effort | 25,054lbf |
This locomotive was built by Kitson & Company in Hunslet near Leeds in 1908.
It was bult for J & A Brown to work on the Richmond Vale Railway as locomotives were required to haul heavy coal trains over the Sugarloaf Range. It was ordered following disappointment with the ex Mersey Railway locomotives employed on the railway. After this locomotive proved to be a success a further two locomotives were ordered from Kitson to the same design.
The design is thought to be based on the one used for the 0-8-0 locomotives built as the Great Central Railway class 8A which became the LNER class Q4.
The colliery railway was around 17 miles long and ran along the Hunter Valley from Pelaw Main Colliery to Hexham where there were staiths by the Hunter River for loading coal boats. There were exchange sidings with the New South Wales Government Railways at Hexham (with the Northern Line) and near Pelaw (with the Weston and South Maitland Railway). This was the last commercially operated railway in Australia to use steam locomotives.
By the 1940s the three locomotives were used on the five miles from Stockrington to Hexham workings.
By 1954 this locomotive and No 10 (Kitson 4798) were standby locomotives and were only used intermittently and the other engine had been withdrawn from service five years earlier and scrapped in 1966.
Following the closure of Pelaw Main and Richmond Main collieries in the 1960’s, the railway across the Sugarloaf Range was truncated to the shorter trip across Hexham Swamp to Stockrington Colliery in the foothills.
From 1969 the two remaining locomotives were used regularly on shunting duties at Hexham and after October 1972 both were returned to service on the Stockrington to Hexham trains.
Whilst No 10 was taken out of service in December 1976 this locomotive (No 9 Works number 4567) remained employed until November 1980.
Both locomotives were transported by road to the formative Richmond Vale Railway Museum in June 1982.
After being on display and subsequently stored in the open air work on cosmetically restoring No9 started in 2020 and was completed in July 2021.
One other locomotive built by Kitson to the same design is also preserved.
- No 10 – Works number 4798


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