Ex GWR Pannier Tank No 3650 from 82B St. Phillips Marsh hauling a docks railway goods train on the Bristol Harbour Branch having just passed through Redcliffe Tunnel and crossing the Bathurst Basin lifting bridge. Bristol General Hospital is on the right. (Bristol Evening Post. Circa 1960).

Why a web site for 3650?...... Well.... why not! Locomotive web sites are springing up all over the place but very few I have found so far are dedicated solely to the "un-sung" heros of the steam era, namely the shunting engines. Whether it was a King, Castle, a 47XX or even a 28XX you can bet there was a pannier tank somewhere that prepared or marshaled the train before the bigger or more glamorous engine took over. Whilst they also did their fare share of local and branch passenger work, the sight of an Old Oak Pannier hauling a wartime length train of coaches up and over the E & C flyover at Old Oak Common from a standing start must have been a stirring one.

My involvement began in 1987 when 3650 was just a set of frames on 1 road in the corner of the newly erected "New Works" at Didcot Railway Centre. Brian Thompson, 3650's custodian, as he likes to be known, was the architect and project manager for the new works, and part of the deal was that 3650 would be the first engine in, and would be left in peace in its corner to progress at its own rate. 3650 was there until it's completion in 2008, some 21 years later!

Brian, since becoming custodian of 3650 back in 1984 has kept a photographic diary of the restoration progress, and from time to time we've had glimpses of his photo's. In the summer of 2000, he showed me one I particularly liked and I asked for the negative to make a copy. His reply was "I don't keep the negatives". This worried me slightly so I asked how many of these irreplaceable photos there were. His reply was that we are on the 24th....... ALBUM, that's 2,400 photos!! The rest of the group decided immediately that we should make backup copies, and what better media than a computer and scanner. About a third of the way through scanning the photo's, the idea for this web site occurred.

Brian is now close to the end of the 42nd album (as of Jan 2011). I've no intention of putting all 4200 photo's on the site, just a few of the really nice ones which I hope will give an insight into the restoration and operation to date. If anyone is really interested then I can let them have a copy of a CD with all I have scanned so far. (You can E-mail me at kevin@3650.co.uk A blank CD and mail costs or a small donation would be appreciated).

Finally, why did it taking so long to restore?
3650 never made it to a scrap yard, but was sold to a colliery, and although when bought for preservation was a complete engine with all of its components, had been run into the ground and was a wreck. Originally 3650 was bought as a source of spares and wasn't really intended for restoration. Well, what more of a challange could you want? Virtually all of the usable components had found their way onto other Didcot engines. Never the less we all agreed that the restoration would use Swindon methods as far as possible, and with the exception of a few components that were beyond our capabilities and the equipment at Didcot, all the work and manufacture of replacement parts has been done by us. Very little other than raw materials and castings have been bought. With the restoration costs of some of the other projects in preservation running into hundreds of thousands, we kept our costs down, but at the expense of time.

Kevin Dare. Jan 2011.