Of all the locomotives on Colonel Stephens' lines, one type fixes in the memories of enthusiasts: the small ex London Brighton and South Coast Railway 0-6-0Ts known as Terriers. These extremely pretty, lightweight and competent locomotives became associated with Stephens' lines, and particularly the Kent & East Sussex Railway, almost continuously from their inception to the present day. In all, Stephens and his successors purchased eight Terriers, hired several more and were probably instrumental in the purchase of one other.

Bodiam was be replaced by a hired Terrier when its boiler gave out in September 1940. She was out of use until repaired in February 1943 with an A1X pattern boiler and smokebox. She may have also been fitted at this time with the S&MR's Dido' s tanks acquired in 1941 (see below). Re-boilering was a difficult job for Rolvenden Works, so two K&ESR fitters undertook the work at St Leonards Shed under wartime's cooperative arrangements. Finished in April 1943 the engine became to all intents and purposes an A1X, whilst retaining the sandboxes on the front splasher like some earlier Isle of Wight rebuilds. Some reports suggest she did not return home until 7 th March 1944 but this cannot now be verified. Further repairs were undertaken at Brighton Works between 28th April and 15th September 1947 when she received an exchange boiler and was repainted a darker green. After Nationalisation, the engine was taken into British Railways' stock and further repaired at Ashford in the second half of 1949; remarkably being repainted again in apple green with yellow lining but as British Railways No 32670. From then on she worked on the K&ESR until dieselisation; then working at Newhaven and elsewhere with occasional returns including the last day special. She returned in 1964, on preservation- a true living embodiment of the continuity of the K&ESR- on whose metals she has been present for all but 9 years of its 105 years of operation.

It appears to have been repaired, but the railway closed for ever on 27 January 1925 and the engines were then stored at the foot of the incline, under steadily decaying canvas sheets, for the next 21 years. The Southern Railway are reported to have inspected them for possible purchase in 1938 but their condition ensured that the idea was abandoned. The lower part of The EHLR was requisitioned by the government during the Second World War for a munitions depot known as C A D Kineton, and this isolated the locomotives. Perhaps, as a consequence, they escaped wartime scrap drives and remained untouched until they finally fell to the scrapman in April and May 1946.

THE SHROPSHIRE & MONTGOMERYSHIRE RAILWAY

In early 1918, during the First World War, the Admiralty had acquired 5 Terriers using them at Invergordon and Inverness, very close to their progenitor's birthplace. They were needed in connection with the laying the laying of a massive sea mines barrage in the North Sea. This involved the movement of large quantities of US material ,shipped to Kyle of Lochalsh and transported in trains of SECR trucks hauled by LSWR Adams 4-4-2T to a US depot at the evacuated Dalmore Distillery at Alness ( US Naval Base 17) or by the Caledonian Canal to the similarly evacuated Glen Albin Distillery, Muirtown Basin, Inverness ( US Naval Base 18) .At Alness, to open up better access to the nearby Invergorden harbour, a new line 2miles long was built on the foreshore to join the Invergorden harbour branch. These bases were also used at the war's end to retrieve the mines. The Terriers must have worked hard in this period with three at Dalmore and two at Muirtown but they ended up as war surplus. Stephens seemed unable to resist the bargains on offer and swept three of these favourite engines into the net, all unrebuilt A1s: one came in 1921 and two in 1923. The first came from Dalmore to become No 7 Hecate, followed by No 8 Dido from Muirtown and No 9 Daphne again from Dalmore. In the early days the locos seem to have retained their existing liveries and Hecate was certainly in Marsh Umber for a time, with Dido in the black livery she had carried on the LB&SCR. Though reportedly never repainted they appear from photographs to have painted in a plain style, probably sage green.

Although some commentators seem to think these engines were little used, there is no real evidence to support this contention. All seem to have given moderately useful service on the railway but were handicapped by their relative smallness. Although they were rapidly supplanted on some passenger services by the railcar set, they seem to have found a niche for a few years in the 1920s.Tom Rolt records that by the late twenties they were less popular than the Ilfracombe Goods, because they were hardly equal to the morning mixed train to Shrewsbury with its heavy load of roadstone from the Criggion Quarries. As original A1s they carried no injectors but were dependent on a Stroudley's axle-driven pump, which was outdated even when they were built, to feed water to their boilers. Rolt notes that overloaded on the climb from the Severn to Ford and Crossgates, speed fell so low that the pump was unable to deliver enough feed water. The Terrier would then have to be detached from its train to run up and down and pump enough water into the boiler until the journey could be resumed.

In July 1930 it was reported to the S&MR Directors that Terrier No 8 Dido had been reconditioned with No 7 Hecate's boiler, and that No 7's remains had been scrapped. Her wheels were then sent to Rolvenden in lieu of debt, where they may still be extant under Bodiam. Dido was withdrawn in July 1931 (her reconditioning the previous year was thus of very limited use) and in November she was in the process of being broken up. By January she was reported as gone, but Austen later reported, on 17 October 1933, the sale of the boilers of 7 and 8, together with two others, to G R Jackson of Wednesbury for £100. Further her tanks lingered on until September 1941 when they were sold to the K&ESR for £1/10/- (£1.50) each, presumably for use on Bodiam.

With two Terriers now withdrawn, the last, No 9 Daphne, although officially withdrawn in 1932, lingered on, reportedly in working order ,well-kept and intact in Kinnerley paint shop, until bought in January 1939 by the Southern, and initially at least, stored in the paint shop at Eastleigh. Often reported as purchased for spares it does not seem to have been touched until scrapped in 1949. Daphne was an A1 in original condition and for some reason had been well preserved by the S&MR. Was it kept by the, usually unsentimental, Austen as a keepsake and intended for the Southern's Eastleigh museum collection, only for that collection to be abandoned in 1940 when it and its possible fellow relics (including Stephens K&ESR Royal Saloon acquired earlier) were put out, in some cases literally, to grass? This is a surmise at least as probable as the spares story. Boxhill later became the officially preserved Terrier.

The WC&P's motive power situation reached another crisis in 1936 and Austen obtained a further Terrier. She became No 4 and was painted in Austen's customary livery of green lined with yellow but, as by now usual, did not receive a name. She was purchased for £400 on 10 February 1937, in time to allow her sister to be set aside for boiler repairs. For the last couple of years the Terriers worked most trains until No 4 hauled the last public train on 18 May 1940. After some rather dubious ownership proceedings arising from the WC&P's uncertain legal status, both engines then became the property of the Great Western Railway on 22 June, No 4 working around Bristol for a few years before being condemned in 1948. Portishead was overhauled and worked around Bristol until 1948, when she moved on to Bridgwater Docks, before going into store at Swindon . Unsuccessful attempts were made to persuade Weston-super-Mare Council to preserve her but, after a period of storage, she went for scrap in 1954.

SHEPPEY LIGHT RAILWAY

During the construction of this railway, under the supervision of Stephens as an engineer the contractor, W Rigby, hired LB&SCR No 671 Wapping, the engine that ultimately became K&ESR's No 5 Rolvenden, to help with the work. Stephens' affection for these engines probably effected both this hire, and the subsequent purchase in 1904, by the South East & Chatham Railway of a Terrier for use on this railway. The railway had opened using conventional locomotives, but in order to economise the SE&CR had, after flirtation with internal combustion railcars, decided to employ steam railcars on the line. To cope with the goods work they purchased No 654 Waddon, which became SE&CR No 751. It was also used on passenger trains at peak periods when the railcars were overloaded. Unfortunately, water supplies on the Sheppey Light were inadequate for a small tank, and by 1910 the Terrier had been moved away. Finally, carrying an A1X boiler but retaining an A1s appearance, she followed an even more peripatetic career than her fellows, including, numbered DS680, hauling a special on the K&ESR. She crowned this by ending up preserved at the Canadian National Railway Museum, near Montreal, where she has recently been repainted.

EAST KENT RAILWAY

A strange case, even by Stephens' railway standards, is of the East Kent Terrier that never was. Terrier 642 was withdrawn in May 1925 at a time when Stephens was inspecting others for the WC&P. Her boiler was retained and bought by Stephens for the EKR in 1926 and is recorded as having been transported to Shepherdswell. Although it was never observed there it is recorded as remaining there until sold back to the Southern in 1936. The Southern then used it as a replacement for that on No 2653 which the next year returned to the Stephens fold as WC&P No4 . A Stephens' Terrier in spirit if not substance

*Name not carried 1932 - 1963

(a) Sold to Admiralty, resold SMR 7/1921

(b) Sold to Admiralty, resold SMR 11/1923

(c) Resold to Southern Railway .Scr 4/1949

(d) Transferred to GWR 6/1940 as Nos 5 and 6 and to British Railways

(e) Preserved in Canada by Canadian Historical Association

With preservation, a total newcomer appeared on the scene, 32650. After spending the early 1930s on the Isle of Wight as W9 Fishbourne, she then spent 20 years at Lancing Carriage Works as DS515, finally working from 1953 onwards as a Hayling Island engine. Purchased by Sutton & Cheam Council for exhibition, changed plans found it diverted to accompany Bodiam on the resurrected K&ESR in 1964. Active on the Railway for 32 of the next 40 years and withdrawn with worn cylinders, she was moved by her owners to the Spa Valley railway in 2004 where she still languishes.

32678 had been exiled to Butlin's Holiday Camp for 15 years after withdrawal and then made her way via the West Somerset Railway and Resco Ltd, to her old stamping ground of 22 years' duration. On the K&ESR she is generally referred to by the name Knowle, a name that she had not carried since about 1907.Together with Bodiam these two long-term companions make up the duo of resident Terriers. Great living memorials to Colonel Stephens on the preserved K&ESR.

Sources

Locomotive History of the London Brighton and South Coast Railway, Vol  , D L Bradley, RCTS

Lines of Character, L T C Rolt, Constable, 1952

Edge Hill Light Railway, E C Tonks, 1949

East Kent Railway, M Lawson Finch & Stephen Garrett, Oakwood Press, 2003

Sheppey Light Railway, B Hart, WSP, 1999

The Highland Railway, David Ross, Stenlake Publishing, 2010

S&MR minutes and WC&P papers in the National Archive

Colonel Stephens Archive

www.colonelstephenssociety.co.uk