County of Kent arrived at the SNBR in September 1992 from Mardyke miniature railways. She was purchased due to concerns
that the present fleet of the Hymek and Deltic were being used heavily and no spare engine was available. County like her Mardyke Diesel sibblings sports a 10hp two cylinder Kabota Diesel egnine
driving a Danfos hydraulic pump. The pump in turn feeds two hydraulic motors, one mounted on each bogie.
County originally arrived as 47 513 and ran
unamed (like all the other engines at the time except for Steptoe) in a mid grey version of the intercity livery. In 1995 she was repainted into the BR dutch livery of
grey and yellow and was re-numbered to 47 845. She was named County of Kent in a champayne ceremony on Platform 3 of Lakeside. She was the first engine to have a naming
ceremony. Like her older sister Tulyar, county is the only other engine to achieve 10,000 miles of passenger service in 10 years. Underlying her reliability in 2005 she over took the Hymek into second place of the most passenger miles despite being 3 years younger.
County has always remained the unsung hero of the fleet, never getting near the adoration of Tulyar or Kestrel get.
In recent years County was repainted back into Intercity livery as shown above. In 2006 County failed in service and was withdrawn for overhaul, however her working parts were used to keep other Mardyke engines going. By 2011 all that was left was a body, her bogies and her frames. As the Mardyke fleet
gets ever older, the decision was made to buy two replacement diesels in 2011. It is not expected that County of Kent will ever return to service, with her remaining parts used to keep other engines in service.
