Mardyke Class 47 47548 ‘The Silcock Express’
Our trusty class 47, was built by Mardyke Miniature Railway in 1992 at their workshops just down the road in Rainham. She was finished in a Scotrail livery (see above) and started life at the Ness Island Railway in Scotland. Her number was 47548, which is the number she still carries today despite a name change.
In 2004 the loco moved south to the Bolebroke Castle & Lakes Railway in Kent, where it received a full overhaul, also at Bolebroke it was repainted into BR Blue Large Logo. She remained there for 9 years, moving to Barnards in 2013, joining our other Mardyke D7096 ‘Uncle John’.
The loco was repainted again to BR Blue (Small Logo), and on a naming ceremony was named ‘The Silcock Express’, named after the company that Barnards Farm founder Bernard Holmes ran. It is a replica (although a different livery) of the full-size class 47 named ‘The Silcock Express’ for the very same reason.
The full sized loco was 47231 ‘The Silcock Express’, was built by Brush Traction in 1965, eventually rebuilt by Brush as a class 57 (57010) and renamed without ceremony as ‘Freightliner Crusader’. She passed through the hands of Freightliner and DRS (Direct Rail Solutions) before being purchased and restored by West Coast Railway. She is mainline registered and can be seen hauling ECS (Empty Coaching Stock) around the national rail network and appearing at heritage railways.
Our 7 1/4 ‘Silcock Express’ is currently out of service, undergoing an overhaul at CMD Engineering. It is planned to return her to service as soon as possible, alongside our own D7096 ‘Uncle John’.
The original ‘The Silcock Express’ nameplates are now at Barnards and hang up in our barn, if you ever pop in the barn for a visit, be sure to take a look.