LNER (War Department) 0-6-0ST No. 68078 (71463)
Sellindge, Kent, UK 		Location: A J R Birch & Sons Ltd
Status: Restoration
Posted: Dec 5, 2024 @ 12:12:40 by Russell Newman
The restoration of the ex LNER J94 Austerity 0-6-0ST No. 68078, one of only two genuine ex-LNER J94 0-6-0STs in preservation has now been completed at the Sellindge site in Kent, as it is now in the final stages and is to steam for the first time in preservation in 2025. It is hoped that No. 68078 will find a new home in the South East of the UK during 2025.
Posted: Apr 24, 2021 @ 10:04:09 by Russell Newman
No. 68078 is the second ex London & North Eastern Railway J94 Austerity 0-6-0ST to survive in preservation out of 75 locomotives that were sold to the LNER and classified as J94. Built in 1946 by Andrew Barclay at Kilmarnock, Ayrshire in Scotland as WD No. 71463 she was sold to the LNER in July that year and given the LNER Number No. 8078 which this would later be changed to No. 68078 under British Railways from 1948. No. 68078 would spend much of her working life round Lincolnshire and the North being shedded at Immingham, Thornaby and Langwith Junction sheds from 1948 until 1961. Like her sisters that worked on the LNER it too was fitted with an extended coal bunker. Withdrawn from British Railways service in March 1963 she was sold off to Derek Crouch Ltd and was used in Northumberland at Widdrington Disposal Point. In 1975 No. 68078 was the last steam locomotive in commercial industrial use in Northumberland. She was then sold off for preservation being stored at the then GW Preservation Society at Southall in West London in October 1987. It moved again for further storage at the former ROF establishment at Hayes in Middlesex. She was moved again to her current base at the private site at Sellindge in Kent where No. 68078 is under restoration which is still ongoing but in a recent report her chassis is now back on its wheels and its cab and bunker have been refitted.
Posted: Mar 11, 2019 @ 06:03:47 by Russell Newman
The only real LNER J94 Austerity 0-6-0ST No. 68078 is also being overhauled at Sellindge as it is being worked by members of the Kent and East Sussex Railway there who own the locomotive under Kent Locomotives Ltd.
Posted: Jun 13, 2008 @ 14:06:54 by Jon Edwards
J94 68078 under restoration, 11/06/08