The Bristol Railway Archive

Bristol has had its fair share of locomotive builders although its never been known as a railway locomotive construction centre to any great extent.

Pecketts , Avonside and Fox Walkers all built engines here and I suspect that the Bristol & Exeter Railway may also have built their locos in the city as I have seen an old map showing buildings at the back of what became Bath Road Sheds marked as Locomotive Factory.

Anyone know details of the last engines to be built in Bristol from scratch and when they were completed ?

Well, as no one else has proposed anything different I would guess the last Bristol locos would have been built by Pecketts. A quick search on the WWW provides a lot of sources & by general agreement the last steam loco appeared in 1958 (No.2165, an outside cylinder 0‑6‑0 side tank for the 3ft 0in gauge system of the Sena Sugar Estates Ltd in Mozambique). Pecketts weren't very interested in diesels but produced a few (5???), the last in 1959 (No.5014, a standard gauge 200hp 0‑6‑0 built for the Aberthaw Power Station, Glamorgan, of the CEGB). Pecketts carried on with repairs for a few more years. The last loco actually to leave the Atlas Works was their 1957 100hp 0-4-0 diesel which left in Feb 1962 after a gearbox change. It was used by Albright & Wilson at Portishead.

The best site is perhaps that of the Industrial Railway Society ( http://www.irsociety.co.uk ). Many of the back issues of their bi-monthly magazine are online - luckily including that of April 1974 which was a 'Peckett Special'. (Click on the 'I.R.Record Archives' sidebutton, then on the 'Index of Back Issues' button, then on the 'Vol 5' link & you're almost there!)