The third of the original batch of three locomotives delivered for the opening of the Peel Line on 1st  July 1873, this locomotive was supplied from the Gorton Foundry of Beyer, Peacock & Co., and was originally intended to have been named Viking (see extract from the order book reproduced below).

However the name was changed to honour Sir John Pender M.P., (1819-1896) one of the original directors of the Railway Company.  The first locomotive No.1 Sutherland was famously named after chairman the Duke of Sutherland, with No.2 being named Derby after the Earls of Derby, one time owners of the Island.

This name would not be until over a century later in 1993, it was only then that a locomotive would carry the name with the commissioning of diesel No.17 Viking which had been obtained second-hand from Germany the previous year, it remained in regular operation until 2012 and is now stored..

Little modified over the years but was the recipient of three different boilers in its working life, two new from Beyer, Peacock & Co., in 1888 and 1913, with a third being transferred from No.2 Derby in 1951 upon the latter's withdrawal from service, this in fact dated from 1893.

In 1925 the locomotive was involved in an fatal accident at Douglas Station which resulted in the death of the fireman.  The train failed to stop as it arrived, crashing through the buffers, and coming to rest in a flowerbed, the fireman was thrown from the footplate and suffered fatal injuries.

This incident is well known and ultimately resulted in the fitting of vacuum brakes to all the locomotives, postcard views of the accident can be seen below.  A detailed account of this incident appears in a back issue of Manx Steam Railway News which will be added here as time allows.

After withdrawal from traffic the locomotive in 1964, latterly on pilot duties, it was stored in the cavernous carriage shed at Douglas Station, a common fate with out of use locomotives, and was later repainted into a red livery and placed on display from 1969 until 1974 at the terminus.

It left the island in 1977 and bound for the Museum Of Science & Industry in Manchester where it was sectionalised, it being discovered that the boiler and firebox were no longer in serviceable condition and the right-hand cylinder cracked and deemed too expensive to repair. 

It was noted at the time that the fireman’s side water tank was removed for storage at the museum though the whereabouts of the second nameplate remain a mystery to this day;  other assorted fittings from the cab and elsewhere were taken prior to dispatch from the island for Manchester.

Re-painted after sectioning in Brunswick Green, today the locomotive remains a central exhibit at the museum where the wheels still periodically, even if only operated by electricity. From 2026 it was repositioned so that the unsectioned side is against a wall and not viewable.