No. 5305

LMS 5MT 4-6-0 5305

Designed by Sir William Stanier and built by Armstrong Whitworth at Newcastle-on-Tyne for the London midland and Scottish railway. The class was designed for mixed traffic duties throughout the midland regions. 5305 was 1 of 842 built and 1 of 18 preserved. 

5305, curiously and unlike most preserved Black 5s, is usually known by its LMS number. It spent its working life all over the more southerly sections of the former LMS network and saw its final allocation to Lostock Hall (in Preston),

45305 survived to the last month of steam on British Railways 1n August 1968 and was planned to be used on the Fifteen Guinea Special (1T57) which ran on 11 August 1968 but on the night before the trip it was failed with a collapsed firebox brick arch and had to be replaced by engine 45110. 45305 was sold to scrap merchants Albert Drapers and Sons Ltd. of Hull soon after.

45305 became the last locomotive on the scrap line of Drapers of Hull, who broke up 742 former BR locomotives mainly from the eastern region and the owner decided to preserve the 45305 as it was the shiny engine in the yard as it had been cleaned for its last run.

45305 was put in the care of the Humberside Locomotive Preservation Group and based at Hull Dairycoates motive power depot where it was eventually brought up to full main line standard in LMS livery steamed again in 1976.

In 1984, 45305 was named Alderman A E Draper by the Mayor of Hedon, Bill Tong. A.E. Draper was twice Mayor of Hedon and the Hedon coat of arms is on the nameplates. However, for reasons of authenticity, the engine does not always carry these nameplates.

45305 worked over the West Highland Line between Fort William and Mallaig, which was the line used in the Harry Potter films continuing the class’s particular association with Scotland.

The locomotive left Hull Dairycoates in April, 1992 on the closure of that shed and went to RAF Binbrook in Lincolnshire.

It arrived on the GCR 20th November, 1996 and was returned to service in 2003. In April, 2005 the Mayor of Charnwood, Mike Jones, welcomed the Lord Mayor of Hull, John Fareham, to the Great Central Railway to re-name the engine Alderman A E Draper using the plates used when the locomotive was first named in 1984. The locomotive remains in the ownership of A E Draper and Sons and is in the long term care of the 5305 Locomotive Association, the successor to the Humberside Locomotive Preservation Group and is now in full care of 5305la.

On 4 February 2006 45305 Alderman A. E. Draper collided with a rake of six carriages at Loughborough Central, damaging the locomotive and one of the carriages. It was then withdrawn for repairs, which were completed in October 2010. 45305 returned to service complete with a new 10 year boiler ticket and renewed mainline certificate. 

In 2017 the boiler was lifted off the frames at Loughborough to facilitate repairs to the ashpan and weeping firebox stays. The locomotive passed its insurance test at the end of October 2018 and returned to traffic in the following month.

45305 last ran on 27/10/21 and has since been under overhaul since. The groups main focus is working on 30777 to get that finished and after that 45305 will be the main priority.