This is one of the final two crane tank locomotive built by R & W Hawthorn , Leslie & Company in Newcastle upon Tyne for the . New South Wales Government Railway (NSWGR).
These locomotives were used for all types of lifting jobs at railway workshops and depots, for permanent way renewals and construction, and for erection and dismantling of overhead structures and signal bridges. They were also employed for handling scrap materials in reclamation depots and maintenance materials in permanent way stores, for which duty they were sometimes equipped with clamshell buckets and electro-magnets for handling heavy items such as fishplates.
The crane was capable of lifting loads of up to 7 tons and rotating 360 degrees.
The locomotives were classified as class X10. The X10 class included a number of different types of engines including small 0-4-0 and 2-4-0 tank locomotives. All types of duplicates, yard and depot locomotives, crane locomotives and accident cranes and special equipment were classified as the X10 class. Many were purchased from other government agencies and private lines. As such, this was an extremely diverse group of locomotives.
This locomotive was employed at Eveleigh workshops at Sydney and was still in service in 1983.
The locomotive was then displayed for a period in a courtyard at the Eveleigh Locomotive Works but was later placed into storage due to its deteriorating condition. The other locomotive (1083 Works no 7543) was then placed on display at Everleigh.
In 1994 the locomotive was donated to Powerhouse Museum which was the major branch of the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences (MAAS) in Sydney. The locomotive was still in storage at Eveleigh in 2003.
By February 2011 the locomotive was in storage at the Powerhouse Museum’s Castle Hill Discovery Centre.
In February 2015 the State Government announced that the Powerhouse Museum would be relocated to Parramatta. As this was a controversial decision the plan was reviewed and the NSW government announced in July 2017 that the museum would stay where it was. The following year the plan was reviewed and it was confirmed that the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney would close between 2020 and 2021. The former site was to become a Broadway style theatre and fashion museum. In July 2020, the decision to close the site and relocate the collections was reversed.
There are three members of the six locomotives supplied between 1914 and 1923 which have been preserved.
The other two are.
- 1052 Works No 3035
- 1067 Works No 3564
- 1068 Works No 3565
The other locomotive supplied in 1950 and preserved is
- 1083 Works No 7543
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