ON Saturday, March 16 (10am – 1pm), Horwich Heritage is celebrating the 130th Birthday of the first locomotive built at Horwich Locomotive Works, No.1008.

Every true Horwicher knows about 1008 and it is one of the first things we teach the primary school children who visit our Heritage Centre every year to learn about the town’s illustrious railway history.

Even today, it is not uncommon for numbering systems to start at 1000 but the reason why 1008 was the first was because, as far as we know, there were seven other engines operating at Horwich before it but none exclusively built there.

Unfortunately it was not Horwich’s destiny to have the glamour of locomotives named after Dukes or Castles, its locomotives were working engines with just numbers but it did make 1,830 of them (and repaired 50,000 of them) in its 97 years of operation which ran all over the country and across the world.

Many of these locos ran until the very end of the ‘steam age’ in 1965 and eight of them are still preserved and operating everywhere from the East Lancs Railway to the ‘Watercress’ line in Hampshire and from the Keighley & Worth Valley to the North North Norfolk Railway.

1008 was designed in 1889 by the first Chief Mechanical Engineer at the new Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Company Works in Horwich, John (later Sir John) Aspinall, who somehow found time to design locomotives as well as mastermind the construction of the giant Railway Works, the Mechanics Institute and Recreation Ground and plan the layout of all the workers houses. He must have been a busy man!

His efforts were rewarded when he became General Manager of the whole L&YR Co. in 1899 and his immense contribution to the development of the railway industry in this country was eventually recognised when he was knighted in 1917.

1008 was in service for 65 years before being retired and sent for scrap. Fortunately its uniqueness as the first loco built at Horwich was recognised, and in the 1950s it was restored on the Works before being sent to the British transport Museum at Clapham.

This was in the days before there was a National Railway Museum in York. But as soon as that opened in 1975, 1008 took its rightful place amongst the nation’s historic railway engines, eventually to be joined by miniature Works Engine ‘Wren’ and the Horwich-built ‘Crab’ LMS No. 3000.

At our Open Day on March 16, we hope to be joined by Jim Unsworth who worked on the restoration of 1008 and has the dubious distinction of fitting its ‘wooden’ chimney and by surviving members of Horwich’s Parish Folk who immortalised 1008 in song some 30 years ago. There will be lots of ‘Raiwayana’ to see including a working layout so why not come along to our celebration and enjoy some 1008 birthday cake!

Stuart Whittle (Chairman, Horwich Heritage )