Steam Locomotive Information

Here are the notes for NCB, Littleton Colliery No. 4 'Robert Nelson', a 0-6-0ST located in Dundalk, Ireland. If you have additional information about this locomotive, and would like to share it, click the Add Note button.

Posted: Jun 14, 2024 @ 10:06:54 by Russell Newman
This is the history and detail of former NCB, Littleton Colliery Hunslet built 0-6-0ST (Works No. 1800) No. 4 "Robert Nelson". She was built in 1936 and was initially employed at the Holly Bank Colliery at Essington in South Staffordshire. The locomotive gained the name "Robert Nelson" after the son of the Charles Nelson who was the chairman and managing director of the Holly Bank Coal Company. The extraction of coal was subsequently taken over by the Hilton Main Colliery when an undergound shaft connected the collieries. Both collieries were part of the Hartley Main Collieries Ltd which was based in Northumberland. In 1959 the locomotive moved to the Littleton Colliery near Cannock, where it operated on the colliery line which linked the mine to the West Coast Main Line at Penkridge. The introduction of diesel shunters ended the regular use of steam locomotives at the colliery in 1972, in the same year "Robert Nelson" entered preservation, first at the Foxfield Railway and then the following year in January 1973 it moved to the Great Central Railway where it was in regular use after being one of the first steam locomotives to steam at Loughborough in the early years of preservation at the Great Central Railway. It remained at Loughborough until the 1990s when "Robert Nelson" then moved to the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway, where it operated for a short while before leaving the UK for preservation in Ireland and a move to the then Riverstown Mill Railway a proposed standard gauge project in Ireland that sadly never took off and the locomotive is currently in storage at Dundalk awaiting its fate. Could No. 4 "Robert Nelson", be repatriated back to the UK again, only time will tell??

Posted: Nov 3, 2023 @ 05:11:37 by Martin Baumann
The Riverstown Mill railway closed by 2010. Hunslet 1800 is reportedly still in site locked up in a shed.

Posted: May 9, 2009 @ 18:05:51 by Nathan Lightowler
Hello, I am a RPSI fireman I was down looking at this engine today. I took my camrea well it goes everywere with me. I took 204 pics of the engine. The boiler pressure is 160psi. Thanks Nathan


NCB, Littleton Colliery 0-6-0ST No. 4 'Robert Nelson' Dundalk, Ireland	Location: Riverstown Mill Railway Status: Stored