NANTGARW Les Hutchinson and his industrious Austerities

It was our great privilege to have known Les Hutchinson at the National Coal Board Nantgarw Coking Ovens and mine installation in the Rhondda Valley. He was a quiet, industrious man – the South Wales coalfields and elsewhere possessing many such true railwayman – whose long-acquired engineering prowess and knowledge was only equalled by his determination to keep his beloved engines moving. This was with minimal spares, and sometimes no spares at all, and to mend and adapt as his Austerities’ steam tenure came inexorably to its end...

The sheer enthusiasm that shone through, was equally matched by the crews that worked the two extant Hunslet Austerity 0-6-0STs around the clock, and that had frequently met their match, as they battled for 61/2 days a week against the virtual mountains of coal and coke that threatened to engulf the lofty spires of the post-Second World War coking ovens at Nantgarw in the wide