A HUGE labour of love will pay dividends in the near future when the G5 steam locomotive gets back on the tracks 50 years after the last commercial one was scrapped.

For a group of volunteers led by Richard Maughan, of Stocksfield, is part way through the rebuild that has already been eight years in the making.

“It’s around two-thirds physically and financially complete,” he said.

“So far we have raised and spent £800,000 on it and it will probably cost around another £400,000.

“I was 56 in March and I’d like to see it running by the time I’m 60 and I think that’s realistic.

“Mind you, if we had the money, we’d be looking at 18 months... “

The locomotive is taking shape in a unit on the Hackworth Industrial Park in Shildon.

Modelled specifically on engine number 1759, the first of them to be scrapped in 1948, the G5 was the workhorse of the railways until the more efficient diesel multiple units came along.

“None of the G5s were preserved – the last one was scrapped in 1958,” he said. “But it’s such a small, compact locomotive that it will still be useful today, because it has a standard gauge.”

As such, it will be able to run on all the heritage railway lines in the region (bar the South Tynedale Railway, which is narrow gauge), and if the case should ever arise, on the normal commercial tracks too.

There were once 110 of them in existence, with the first having rolled off the production line in Darlington in 1894. At their peak in the 1920s, four travelled the route between Newcastle and Carlisle and were ‘shedded’ in Hexham.

One of the biggest challenges for the team has been the fact most of the means of production needed are long gone.”The engineering facilities are no longer widely available in the UK,” said Richard.

“We are having to go to specialists where there might be just one such company left. For example, there’s effectively only one company left in Great Britain that can forge the crank-axle we need and that’s in Lincoln.

“And to get the wheels assembled, we ended up sending the parts to a company 500 miles away, in South Devon.”

One set of parts, the steel tyres, even had to be imported from a company in South Africa that could produce what is now an unusual size.

At 5ft 1¼ins in diameter, they are much bigger than those on diesel trains.

The G5 Locomotive Company behind the project was formed nine years ago and Richard, having met some of the other directors through their common interest in the Weardale Heritage Railway, joined them four years later as chief executive officer.

He doesn’t draw a salary for the 15 hours a week he puts in.

A civil engineer by profession, who worked for the Taylor Woodrow and John Mowlem construction companies in turn, he had a hand in both the Riding Mill weir and bypass.

He said: “I also had 10 very good years self-employed and invested wisely in property. Several years ago, I decided I could get by on what I had and retired early, so now I’m investing my time in steam engines.”

The G5 limited company is proud to have on board design engineer David Elliot, known for his work on the replica models of the Tornado and the Prince of Wales steam engines being built in Darlington, and 130 very supportive shareholders.

And then there’s Richard’s dad, John, who he credits with giving him his passion for steam trains in the first place. He calls him ‘the technical support’.

“He’s 85 now and lives in Stocksfield, too, and he can remember the G5s on the wagon way between North Wylam and Newcastle,” said Richard.

“I remember being taken to see the Sir Nigel Gresley in 1973, when it was in the coal board depot at Philadelphia, in Houghton-le-Spring, and that was it!

“It’s the smell of steam engines and the fact they are entirely mechanical – there are no electronics on them – so it’s an engineering you can understand.

“As soon as you light the fire in them, they come alive and that’s when you realise – they each have a personality of their own.”