ARTHURIAN LEGEND
Usually, the prevailing and sensible school of thought in railway preservation is that you should buy a locomotive because of its condition, not for its name. Certainly that’s the case when setting out to preserve today’s heritage diesels; it’s no good saving a celebrity ‘namer’ with a special livery if it’s got thin tyres or high engine hours, or the copper thieves have been at it.
Things can be different when it comes to steam locomotives, though. When intrepid preservationists began rescuing survivors from Dai Woodham’s famous Barry scrapyard, many of the first engines to find buyers were indeed those considered to be in the best nick. Most were back in steam within a relatively short time, and some even still had original BR tubes in the boiler.
Nonetheless, there were of course rare or unique Barry engines rightly saved for their historical significance regardless of condition, while there were also a few that were rescued simply because of their name, or because they were somebody’s particular favourite. As its title suggests, the 73082 Camelot Locomotive Society was a case in all those points.
The society didn’t even consider any of the other engines in the yard – the BR Standard 5MT 4-6-0 of that name and number was always going to be its choice.
Unique ‘namer’
What was so special about it? Well, as we shall see, one significant achievement on its CV is that it almost certainly holds the speed record for the Standard Fives – but the main point was that it was (and is) the last surviving ‘Standard Arthur’. As the earliest Urie-designed examples of the much-loved King Arthur 4-6-0s were being withdrawn in the late 1950s after a long and illustrious career with the Southern Railway and Southern Region, a BR staff member put forward the suggestion that their stirring names, associated with the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, be transferred to some of the Southern Region’s Standard 5MTs.
