Andrew Barclay, Sons & Company of Kilmarnock were one of Britain's most prolific builders of industrial shunting and narrow gauge locomotives. Their standard gauge industrial saddle tank engines are characterised by their flat-sided saddle tanks. The limited liability company was founded in 1892 following the failure of Mr Andrew Barclay's previous companies, which in turn had spawned Grant, Ritchie & Co. founded by two former Andrew Barclay engineers. This Andrew Barclay company was a great successes, building a large number of conventional and and fireless steam locomotives and producing a very Germanic looking well tank design for narrow gauge engines. The company adapted to diesel shunting locomotive construction in the late 1940s, though often possessed a distinctly steam-era appearance use of a solidly reliable engine and gearbox kept customers coming for Barclays.
>In 1972 the Andrew Barclay company was purchased by the Hunslet Engine Company of Leeds, the group trading as Hunslet-Barclay securing contracts to build some classes of second-generation diesel units for British Rail. Further mergers have seen the business formed into the Wabtec group (former Westinghouse Air Brake company) which still operates in Kilmarnock as Wabtec Rail Scotland.
Well over 100 Andrew Barclay built steam and diesel locomotives have survived in preservation, with a good number of them maintained in working condition on some of the smaller heritage railways.
Andrew Barclay 2047 was built in 1937 for the Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company, later the South of Scotland Electricity Board, for service at Yoker power station where is was locomotive number 4. Withdrawn in the 1970s and was stored at the Strathspey Railway until 1991 when the engine was purchased and moved to the East Somerset Railway where it was restored to steam in 1994. 2047s owner painted the engine in GWR green and fitted numberplates for 705, the next vacant number in the series used by the GWR for absorbed locomotives, the GWR having had 2 Andrew Barclay engines. Repainted into BR black the engine was sold on to a member of the Plym Valley Railway in 2011, where it has been overhauled and returned to service in 2018.