Here at Ribble Steam Railway, we’re well known for celebrating our large collection of industrial steam and heritage diesel locomotives but we have three extremely important locomotives, which work tirelessly to keep Preston’s Dockside traditions alive.
Ribble Steam Railway is unique in the British Isles being a preserved industrial railway which has operated commercial freight trains since 2004 and still is today.
These locomotives arrived in the North West 50 years ago, in a period of great social and economic change. Brought in to replace some nine steam locomotives, one of which survives in the form of the Lakeside & Havethwaite’s ‘Princess’, these stalwart like characters are responsible keeping bitumen trains rolling and the employment of four full-time operational employees. These characters, of course, are Ribble Rail’s three diesel shunters, built by Sentinels, and aptly named ‘PROGRESS, ENTERPRISE & ENERGY’.
SENTINELS, with their Rolls Royce engineer suppliers, turned out diesels for dying industries in the 1960s, and are now represented in higher quantities by heritage railways than their industrial counterparts.
Specially restored for the exhibition, ‘ENTERPRISE’ forms the key part in telling the story of the past 50 years, socially, environmentally, culturally and economically. Summing up our nation’s last 50 years, on the side of a Sentinel!
We want YOU to come and share in this one-off, exciting story. Learn about our Sentinel locomotives, in our Preston-based museum, now!
