The Dartmouth Steam Railway has long been renowned as one of Europe’s finest standard gauge seaside heritage lines, its trademark being its combination of breathtaking coastal and estuarine scenery packed into its near seven-mile length which has delighted generations of holidaymakers – and will continue to do so.
However, in 1944 there was a very different scenario for the GWR Kingswear branch, and indeed much of the South Devon coast, which played a vital role in the preparations for the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France.
Dartmouth and Kingswear were key embarkation ports for the American landing forces, and regular trains delivered personnel and supplies to the ships waiting to take part in the biggest seaborne invasion in history. Many of these trains were not headed by locomotives from the regular GWR fleet, but a new type of locomotive designed and built especially for the war effort – the United States Army Transportation Corps S160 2-8-0s.
As the Second World War developed, the whole UK railway system struggled, and priority was given to the movement around the country of vital munitions and equipment, rather than movement of passengers, except for the endless troop trains. Civilians were actively discouraged from using trains unless essential.
The network took a pounding from Luftwaffe raids, leading to an acute shortage of motive power, especially freight locomotives.
In 1941, the American Lend Lease agreement was signed, and the US Government gave the United States Army Transport Corps the job of designing and constructing a locomotive suitable for heavy freight haulage, initially in the UK and later for continental Europe and Africa.
Major JW Marsh, of the US Army Corps of Engineers,
