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Monday, 18 January 2010 16:18

Polar Bear at Amberley Chalk Pits Museum

Written by Mike
2-4-0T 2-4-0T "Polar Bear" in the final stages of repair, Chalk Pits Museum, Amberley, West Sussex, 10 October 1982. Ref 0001801

Amberley Chalk Pits Museum - now called "Amberley Museum and Heritage Centre" - is the home to a delightful little narrow gauge tank engine called "Polar Bear".

"Polar Bear" is a two foot gauge 2-4-0T built by W G Bagnall at Stafford as works number 1781 in 1905 for the Groudle Glen Railway on the Isle of Man.

2-4-0T It was the second of two similar locomotives constructed for the line - the first being "Sea Lion".

When the original Groundle Glen Railway closed in the 1960s, "Polar Bear" was acquired by the Brockham Museum Association and arrived at Amberley when the two collections were amalgamated in 1982.

Polar Bear operated at Amberley from 1983 until 1987 when the boiler (which dated from 1927) was condemned. A new boiler was constructed in 1992 and the loco later returned to service in 1993 in its original yellow livery. 

I visited the museum in October 1982 when Polar Bear's restoration was still in progress, and then again in May 1983 when the loco had returned to steam.

Check out my pictures of the railway at Amberley Chalk Pits Museum.

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Mike

Mike

Mike McCormac has been a photographer since about ten years old.  He's a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, and lives in a village in the hills near Paphos in Cyprus.

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