The Narrow Gauge Railway Museum

This locomotive is currently located at the Irchester Narrow Gauge Railway Museum in Northamptonshire.

See also EW009-1 and EW009-2

"Cambrai" is a French 0-6-0 tank engine of metre gauge, fitted with outside Allen straight-link valve gear, which worked in France and in the Ironstone fields of Northamptonshire. It was built by L. Corpet and Cie. of Paris as their No. 493 of 1888.

It originally ran from 1888 to 1936 as No. 5 on the Chemins de Fer du Cambresis carrying the name of ‘CLARY’; it was later renamed ‘CAMBRAI’. The C.F.D. Cambresis was a secondary (i.e. feeder or branch) line and ‘Cambrai’ would have been used on both freight and passenger work. In 1936 she was sold to Thomas Ward Ltd, who in turn sold the locomotive to the Loddington Ironstone Company near Kettering.

The locomotive worked at Loddington quarries until 1956, when it was transferred to the Waltham Iron Company in Leicestershire. It worked there alongside another more modern Corpet 0-6-0 tank engine, named ‘Nantes’, until closure of operations in 1959.

In 1959, ‘CAMBRAI’ was presented to the Talyllyn Narrow Gauge Railway Museum Trust, arriving at Tywyn in 1960. In 1975 it was transferred to A. Keef of Oxford, where the locomotive was stripped down but only limited restoration work was carried out.

‘CAMBRAI’ was moved to Irchester in 1983 and has been rebuilt to ‘static’ condition, with the long-term aim of a return to steam – when finances permit.

A small point of interest, is that ‘CAMBRAI’ now carries the chimney from the scrapped engine ‘Nantes’.

This engine is an extremely rare example of a French-built locomotive used in British Industry.