BR Class 03 - 03197

British Railway Class 03 Diesel-Mechanical 0-6-0​

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The British Railway Class 03 is a class of diesel-mechanical locomotive that was built by Swindon & Doncaster Works between 1957 - 1961, a total of 230 were produced during this time. 

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The class was built for light duties where a larger locomotive were not needed, they were mainly assigned to shunting duties at depots and as station pilots. As British Railway started to introduce more multiple units that could be driven from both ends the demand for shunting locomotives started to diminish and so BR started to withdraw the class from 1968 onwards with many being sold on to private industry. The last of the mainline operational Class 03s had been withdrawn by 1987 due to lack of demand however, two examples on the Isle of Wight remained in service until 1993. Out of the 230 that were produced 174 were scrapped, leaving 56 examples of the class in preservation. 

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03197

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03197 was released from Swindon Work on 15th June 1961 originally as D2197, under Pre-TOPS, and was allocated to the Western Region (91W). Over the course of its life it was transferred to various depots including Laira, Taunton, Eastleigh & Bournemouth where it was then withdrawn in March 1974. Until it was reactivated 19 months later (October 1975) where brought out of storage and allocated to Norwich Thorpe Depot, it remained at Norwich until it was officially withdrawn in July 1987. The locomotive arrived at the Mid-Norfolk Railway in October 2018. 

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