D2098 - 03098

Diesel Dilemmas - top page

Ex BR Diesel Shunting Locomotives Exported to Italy - top page

Ex BR Class 03s exported to Italy via Cairnryan

Reported (p.226 7/76 RO) as having been hauled, along with 03010, 03153 and 03156 as 9Z10 00:40 Tyne to Stranraer special freight on 18th May 1976 for, it is understood, shipment to Italy. Curiously no observations or other evidence has so far been found confirming Stranraer, a ferry and fishing port, was actually port of embarkation. It has thus been concluded they were actually moved from Stranraer to Cairnryan, where Shipbreaking (Queenborough) Ltd had a port side yard. A visitor to this yard that September was told three Class 03 had been sold from there to Italy. Thus, port of embarkation was most likely to have been Cairnryan.

Port of disembarkation in Italy is reported as Trieste. It is then recorded as having been used at the Lucchini Group steelworks at Servola, Trieste, Italy. Subsequently it is understood to have been used at a steelworks in Montello. No evidence confirming this has though so far emerged. However, a photograph taken at Acciaierie Rumi, Montello in December 1990 of a 1943 built German locomotive shows it next to a BR Class 03 although very little of that locomotive is visible. The German locomotive was scrapped in 1992 but it is not known what happened to the Class 03.

Recent research by David Gregory casts doubt on the Servola reference. David says that a list of all Lombarde Falck holdings show no evidence of any link to the Servola steelworks which was actually part of the ILVA company - known simply as 'Italsider' at the time of the locomotives' export to Trieste. Servola has since changed hands and names several times! In fact, any documentation that suggests that Ex BR locomotives were exported for use by Lucchini at Servola is an anachronism - Lucchini group did not have any holding/interest at Servola until 1995.

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