Kitson 5459 – Austin 1

As an industrial engine, this light shunter doesn’t look like much next to our heavier mainline locomotives, but its importance to the industrial heritage of Britain is difficult to overstate.

Austin 1 was built at Kitson and Co. as Works Number 5459 for the Austin Motor Company, and delivered to the manufacturer’s Longbridge plant in 1932 to work alongside four other engines across their West and North Works.

5459’s time at the Longbridge plant would have been spent ferrying wagons full of materials back and forth to supply the busy production lines. Saved from an earlier low period by the advent of mass-market personal automobiles, by 1932 Austin Motors was supplying up to 37% of the UK’s motor manufacturing output and employing over 20,000 people. Alongside the iconic Austin Seven, Longbridge manufactured 3-ton lorries, a successful tractor and even a number of inter-war aircraft.

During the Second World War, the factory pivoted to producing tank parts, machine-guns and mortars, as well as armour-piercing and anti-tank ammunition, boxes, cans and helmets for the war effort. Meanwhile, Austin’s ‘Aero’ factory was founded in secret nearby to produce aircraft such as the Fairey Battle and Short Sterling bombers and the famous Hawker Hurricane fighter. In total, Austin Motors would contribute more than three thousand aircraft, and many thousands of vital components to the fight against Fascism.

Austin 1 worked the Longbridge yards long after the war had ended, eventually passing alongside four of its fellows into the ownership of British Leyland in 1968. Finally, it transitioned into preservation in 1973 when it was bought by Burtonwood Brewery for the Flint and Deeside Railway Society, before finding its home at Llangollen in 1975. Since then, it has been a constant presence at the Railway, pulling some of our very earliest passenger services in 1981. Its most recent overhaul was completed in 2020, and this rugged workhorse now appears on hire at a number of other railways.