Chattenden and Upnor Railway 2-6-2 Locomotives in Great_Britain

Class Pioneer (Locobase 20110)

Data from "The Pentewan Ry", Locomotive Magazine, Volume XIX [19] (14 June 1913), pp. 149-150; and [], last accessed 6 November 2016 and Pentewan Old Cornwall Society at [], accessed 6 November 2016.. Works number was 757 in 1903.

This was one of many small locomotives supplied to this military railway. Its flat pannier tank and Belpaire firebox with wide grate were unusual, but even more exceptional was that "the whole of the foundation ring can be easily taken down in order to clean the firebox plates." Originally equipped with a Holden liquid fuel burner taking its oil from a 60 US gallon (227 litre) tank, the engine was converted to coal burning.

Laid in 1873 to the 18" (457 mm) gauge, the C&U served gunpowder magazines managed by the Royal Engineers. In 1891, six years after its regauging to 2 ft 6 in, the C&U came under the control of the Royal Navy, which had taken over Upnor Depot as a Royal Naval Armaments Depot.

The Pioneer may not have served the C&U's needs as it was sent to the Woolmer Instructional Military Railway in 1905. From there, the Pioneer went to the Pentewan Railway in 1912. The Pentewan was a four-mile (6.4 km) mineral line built to move china clay at St Austell to Pentewan Harbour; some coal moved inland as well.

According to the Pentewan Old Cornwall Society history: "The railway was noted for the annual Sunday School Tea Treat Trains. During the summer months the churches and chapels around the area hired the railway for the afternoon and conveyed their scholars, family and teachers to Pentewan to partake in their tea treat at by the sea."

Competition from the Great Western Railway and development of the ports of Fowey and Par doomed the Pentewan's china clay traffic. The last trip ended on 29 January 1918.