| Weight | 14 tons |
| Driving Wheels | 2ft 0in |
| Boiler Pressure | 160psi |
| Cylinders | Outside – 9½in x 12in |
This locomotive was built by the Hunslet Engine Company in Leeds in 1916 for the British Arm as one of 155 War Office 4-6-0T engines. They were ordered by the War Department Light Railways to run on their 600mm gauge lines supplying the front line during the First World War. The design of the locomotive is an evolution of an earlier Hunslet 0-6-0T type, with extended frames and an added 4-wheel bogie to provide a low axle-load suitable for quickly-laid light railway.
The locomotive left Leeds in August 1916 and is known to have operated at Boisleux-au-Mont in the Pas-de-Calais with troops from the American Expeditionary Force.
It is interesting to note that the 155 locomotives were completed at a time when Hunslet were also constructing howitzers, shells, and machinery to make shells as well as a limited number of other locomotives. By comparison, in peace time they averaged about 40 locomotives of all designs per year.
Most of the locomotives became surplus at the end of the war and a number of the locomotives were repurchased by the Hunslet Engine Company Ltd. They were then overhauled and regauged where necessary prior to being resold. These locomotives and the nine built after the war ended up in diverse locations including Argentina, Palestine and Australia as well as the UK. Fifteen of these locomotives were sold to the Engineering Supply Company of Australia (ESCO) in two batches in 1920 and 1924 for use on the 2 feet gauge (610mm) tramways of the Queensland cane fields.
This locomotive Hunslet 1215 was one of these fifteen and it was purchased by Gibson& Howe Ltd at Bingera Sugar Mill at Bundaberg in 1924. Here it carried the name Hunslet.
In 1942 the locomotive was fitted with a new boiler.
In 1957 the locomotive was moved to the Invicta Mill at Giru which is south-east of Townsville. It was here that it was given the name Invicta. It also gained parts from WD 314 (Hunslet 1226 of 1916) as this locomotive needed a new boiler. Thus WD 303 was fitted with cab and tanks from WD 314.
The locomotive was taken out of service at the Invicta Mill in 1967 and placed on display at the Queensland Bush Children’s Health Scheme home at Rowes Bay, Townsville.
In 1994 the locomotive was acquired for private preservation and transported to Capalaba in Brisbane where it was dismantled for an overhaul.
In 2005 the locomotive was sold to a UK based preservation group and shipped as a dismantled kit.
By September the locomotive had been reassembled and placed on display in Locomotion which is the National Railway Museum at Shildon.
The locomotive was moved to the Apedale Valley Light Railway, near Newcastle Under Lyme in Staffordshire in July 2008.
Around 2009 work began on rebuilding and restoration the locomotive by the War Office Locomotive Society. The restoration of the locomotive commenced in 2012 and proved to be a huge, complex and costly undertaking and required the fitting of a new boiler. It passed its steam test in April 2018 which is when a ten year boiler certificate started. It entered traffic in July 2018.
The locomotive remains based at the Apedale Valley Light Railway but does visit other railways.
This is one of five such locomotives which operated in Australia which have been preserved. The others are.
- WD 306 – Works number 1218
- WD – Works number 1229
- WD 327 – Works number 1239
- WD– Works number 1317
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Preserved British Steam Locomotives 