2647 ROBIN HOOD

'Robin Hood' was built by David Curwen Ltd in 1947. It was Curwen's second big Pacific and built speculatively, but it went to straight to the Weymouth Miniature Railway where Curwen's sister company Baydon Miniature Railways was constructing a new line. It worked this busy line alone for a few years, but had an easier life after a pair of Atlantics arrived in the early 1950s. After the line closed in 1971 it was sold to Jack Doyle who only really wanted one of the Weymouth Atlantics, No.2005, 'Black Prince' for a portable fairground line. 'Robin Hood' was sold straight on to R Holliday of Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire, a driver on the Audley End Railway, and it was subsequiently delivered to Coleby-Simkins in Stapleford Park for restoration.
Back in running order it was only steamed ocassionally at Audley End, and in 1974 it was sold to M Bamford of Ashbourne in Derbyshire, moving again in 1980 to the ill-fated Oakhill Manor Railway near Shepton Mallet, Somerset in 1980. By 1987 the operation had failed, but the locomotives were put into storage pending a possible sale, with 'Robin Hood' leaving for Joe Nemeth Engineering in Severn Beach, Gloucester in December 2004. It was restored for a customer building a new line in Berkshire, and survives in private ownership, bearing its original works number and Weymouth name 'Robin Hood'.