Mitch

**Exe**, better know to other locomotives as **"Mitch"**, is a small narrow gauge 2-6-2T that works on the Dentin Moor Narrow Gauge Railway. He originally worked for the Lynton & Barnstable Railway (L&BR) until the line was closed in 1935 and he eventually replaced the Baldwin 10-12-Ds of WWI originally used on the railway. Mitch is the railway's flagship locomotive.

## Bio

Exe was built by Manning Wardle in 1898 for service on the Lynton & Barnstable Railway (L&BR) in Devon with two other locomotives of the same design (Lew and Taw). Exe arrived that same year and saw action in holiday traffic along the route between the mainline connection to the London & South Western Railway (LSWR) at Barnstable and the holiday resort of Lynton, towards the coast in the north of Devon. Exe's class was joined by an American-built 2-4-2T by Baldwin (Lyn) the same year be was built and saw the tiny engine capable of outpulling him.

In 1935, the L&BR was due for closure by the Southern Railway and the fate of being scrapped lingered in Exe's mind until the railway's closure on 29 September, 1935 and the decision was to sell the four locomotives (for scrap). That year, the Dentin Moor Narrow Gauge Railway (DMNGR) was in need of a new locomotive to start replacing the large number of Baldwin 10-12-D 4-6-0PTs from the First World War and sell them for export or domestic use. Exe came to their attention since the railway does need a better tank locomotive on passenger services (10-12-Ds aren't built for passenger trains) and tackle the hills better than the American trench locomotives. Since Exe is from the L&BR, his design was built for gradients.

Nicknamed "Mitch" by locals, Exe soon used his nickname as his preferred name since it was easier to say. He arrived on the railway in January 1936 with five ex-L&BR coaches to replace the older stock the railway has (the old coaches were based on Talyllyn Railway coaches) and was pressed into service. With the usage of line seeing passenger traffic as its future, Mitch suddenly became the railway's only locomotive and handled all traffic until the completion of Bb class 0-4-0WTs Birmingham, Coventry and Newcastle in the mid-1950s, reveling him of goods traffic.

By the mid-1970s, the Southern Railway lettering and numbering were covered over and was replaced with the number '1' plated on his cabsides. Mitch soon found himself small again when the Moorland Steam Railway constructed a motive power depot (MPD) for locomotives that didn't need to be at Northampsmith (later Gladsville), and was shocked by the size of locomotive from across the UK (and the world with Clyde from Australia and Labiche from France), plus the number of liveries each company had, which he did notice a lot of black liveries.

## Livery

Mitch is painted in Southern Railway green with DMNGR crests.

## Basis or real locomotive

   Exe/"Mitch" is based on the real locomotive. It was one of three 2-6-2Ts built in 1898 by Manning Wardle of Leeds, Yorkshire to begin services on the Lynton & Barnstable Railway (L&BR) that year. Despite being the largest engines on the line, they weren't the most powerful since that title was held by Lyn, a 2-4-2T built by Baldwin in the United States. A fourth 2-6-2T, named 'Lew' was built by Manning Wardle in 1925. All L&BR survived into Southern Railway days until the railway was closed in 1925, resulting in all but one of the railway's locomotives to be scrapped. Lew was sent to South America, possibly Brazil, but has vanished without a trace since 1936. A new build of these engines named 'Lyd' was built by the Ffestiniog Railway in 2010.

Exe was one of the original three built in 1898 and was scrapped following the L&BR's closure in 1935.

## Trivia

Mitch's model is a Heljan OO9 gauge L&BR 2-6-2T in unmarked SR green.

Unlike many characters, Shane Sowter will never reveal where the name "Mitch" came from.

The OO9 couplings used by Mitch's model appears in a few shots.

Until the 1990s, Mitch was the only six-coupled locomotive on the DMNGR. This was broken when Gilbert was rebuilt from 0-4-2T to 0-6-0T in 1990.

Mitch, like Hughes, is fitted with Joy valve gear instead of either Stephenson or Walschaerts, which are more common on narrow gauge locomotives.