The General Steam Navigation Locomotive Restoration Society, have released a limited edition range of N gauge wagons commemorating the birthplace of Paddle Steamer Medway Queen.

Currently based on the river she was built for, Medway Queen is presently being restored at Gillingham Pier in Kent. Back in April this year, the Paddle Steamer celebrated her centenary.

There is a link between both the steam engine and paddle steamer. No. 35011 General Steam Navigation, just like all the Merchant Navy Pacifics, was named after a shipping company.

The company she is named after worked as close partners alongside the New Medway Steam Packet Company in 1930, before the General Steam Navigation Company acquired them outright in 1936.

The limited edition N gauge wagons is the latest in co-operation between the two preservation societies, which not only highlights that particular link between the two former shipping companies, it also commemorates the 100th birthday of Medway Queen.

The wagons are 20 ton mineral wagons and made by Dapol. They have the ship builders name ‘Ailsa Troon’ on the sides and come in both green and brown liveries.

At £14.30 each, the money raised by the selling of these wagons will go towards the restoration of both 35011 and Medway Queen.

The Limited wagons can be brought through the 35011gsn online shop at https://35011gsn.co.uk/online-shop.html

Brief History on Medway Queen

PS Medway Queen was built by the Ailsa Shipbuilding Company of Troon. She entered service on St George’s Day in 1924 as a coal fired vessel, but was converted to oil firing in 1937.

During 1939 at the outbreak of world war two, she was requisitioned by the Royal Navy, where she evacuated children from Kent to East Anglia.

In 1940, she made seven crossings to rescue troops from Dunkirk where she helped to save over 7,000 men. In 1946, she was refitted and returned to service as a pleasure cruiser in 1947.

Her last sailing was in September 1963 and she was expected to be scrapped in Belgium, only for the ship breaker to refuse her as she was seen as “The Heroine of Dunkirk”.

Having refused scrapping, the Daily Mail campaigned to save her and in 1966 she became a nightclub on the Isle of Wight until she had fallen into disrepair.

In 1978 she was brought by private owners who wished to return her to working service. Upon towing her out of the dock at Medina she sprang a leak and sank in the river, this is where she stayed for 6 years until she was salvaged in 1984 before returning to Chatham, where the Medway Queen Preservation Society was set up the following year.

Work on restoration has not been without some near disasters, but significant progress has been made, especially in 2021, when she briefly visited Ramsgate to have her hull and paddle wheels repaired and new hand rails installed.

Brief History on 35011 General Steam Navigation

No. 35011 was the first of the second batch of Merchant Navy Pacific’s being built, and entered service in late December 1944, before she was named on 20th February 1945.

She was shedded at Bournemouth, Nine Elms and Exmouth Junction before she underwent rebuilding in 1959 and returned to service in the July.

She spent much of her later life at Bournemouth, where she worked two railtours over the Somerset and Dorset Railway, and is believed to be the only Merchant Navy to haul trains throughout the length of the line.

35011 was withdrawn in February 1966, having accumulated a milage of over 1,069,128 miles, she was sold to Barry Scrapyard where she remained until March 1983.

She left for Brighton Preston Park, where she was put into store, before moving to RAF Binbrook in Lincolnshire in 2007, then Sellindge (Kent) in 2009.

In 2016, the General Steam Navigation Locomotive Restoration Society was founded, and they moved 35011 to its current home on the Swindon and Cricklade Railway, where restoration is now underway to convert the loco back into original air-smoothed condition.