62428 1950s Hawick
Twenty seven Scotts were built between 1912 and 1920 which were numbered by BR as 62417-62442. Almost half the class at various times were stationed at Hawick to work Waverley line services. As LNER No. 9419 ‘The Talisman’ arrived at Hawick in July 1929 (the first of its type to take up residence there) and stayed until withdrawn at the end of 1958. Frequently seen at Edinburgh Waverley and Carlisle Citadel, the Hawick engines also found their way to Newcastle via the Border Counties route which ran east from Riccarton Jct on the Waverley to Morpeth via Reedsmouth Jct. The Talisman made an indelible mark on Hawick by not only being the first to arrive but also the last to leave. Along with two others (Nos 62422 Caleb Balderstone and 62432 Quentin Durward) it was withdrawn in December 1958, bringing Scott workings from Hawick to an end. The North British way of naming locomotives using a paintbrush rather than fixing a nameplate led to the occasional error over the years, to which this engine was subjected more than once. During the period 1938-1947 it was named ‘Talisman’ for lengthy spells having lost the ‘THE’ prefix, but from early 1947 the mistake was rectified and not repeated for the remainder of its existence.
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