11 Mar The story of the acquisition of the Greenwood & Batley battery operated locomotive
Back in June 2020, the Co-Chairmen of the Halesworth to Southwold Narrow Gauge Railway Society, the forerunner of the Halesworth to Southwold Narrow Gauge Railway CIO, decided the Society would benefit from owning a battery powered locomotive which could be transported by road reasonably easily and which had ‘Green’ credentials. So the pair researched and located such a locomotive, which had been built by Greenwood and Batley in Armley in Leeds, Yorkshire, in Lavendon in Buckinghamshire. The Co-Chairmen, James Hewett and Ken Ledran Penrose visited the site in Lavendon and inspected it, tried it out and decided to buy it. It was delivered to the HSNGR workshop a few days later.
Since then, it has been refurbished and repainted and recently has been named ‘Helen’ in honour of the name of the daughter of HSNGR’s President, Sir Charles Blois.
