This weekend saw the last public outing in the U.K of the two Gresley A4 pacifics repatriated from the USA and Canada to the U.K. Barrow Hill Roundhouse in Derbyshire, the last surviving Midland railway roundhouse was the venue for 'East Coast Giants' where 60008 'Dwight D Eisenhower and 60010 'Dominion of Canada' were displayed with sister engine 60019 'Bittern' and Peppercorn A2 60532 'Blue Peter' Along with the new build Peppercorn A1 'Tornado', which was undergoing firebox maintenance in the shed, it was a fine display of the locomotive classes the bore the brunt of the high speed work over the years on the East Coast main Line from London Kings Cross to Edinburgh. in a picture taken from the Midland Railway Signal box cureently being restored, Bittern has drawn forward for an unveiling of a plaque commerasting its recent 90 mph high speed runs on the ECML to celebtare sister engines 60022 'Mallard' acheiving the high speed record for Steam traction at 126mph in 1938 Dominion of Canada normally resides at the Montreal railway Historical museum and carries a non authentic bell on its smoke box Bittern and Dominion of Canada are both displayed with full stramling in garter Blue livery and carry their original LNER numbers. Bittern is seen alongside one of the class 37s operated by the railway company I work for (DRS) which is currently nearing the end of a heavy overhaul. Dwight D Eisenhower was displayed at Green Bay, Wisconsin and was featured on a recent U.K TV documentary about the loading and transporting of the two locos back to the U.K. As you can see it is preserved in post nationalisation 'British railways' brunswick green livery with the streamling valances remove to improve access to the valve gear more in a min including video KEV
Keeping the East Coast main line theme the National Railway Museum's Great Northern railway C1 4-4-2 no 251 was displayed in the yard and despite being a static display seems to be slighly weathered! These Atlantics introduced at the beginning of the twentieth century were the forerunners of the later Gresley designs and were the high speed front line engines on the London Kings cross-York section As promised here is the link to the video. staring with some shunting to clear the running line by getting 37 245 and the museum resident O3 shunter out of the way we see Bittern draw forward for the plaque unveiling. This was filmed on the V.I.P day on Friday when the 'great and the good' of the rail industry were given special invites.. Follwing the unveiling a HST125 arrives on a special from London St Pancras with 400 paying enthusiasts coming to see the A4s before they return to North America. The HSTs were also main stays of high speed running on the ECML before being bumped off their duties by the electrification of the line and the deployment of the Class 91 electrics [video=youtube;HYtOutIUVpo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYtOutIUVpo&feature=share&list=UUI6p-eLL5zX3K226z27Josg[/video] The event itself was obviously causing a lot of interest with 3,000 advance tickets sold for the public days on Saturday and Sunday and as previous experience has shown us the advance sales are typically 25% of the gross gate we were looking at potentially 12,000 people through the door over the weekend and they say "railway enthusiasm is a dying hobby"!!!! Kev
How cool! I heard about the Barrow Hill event, and I had wanted to see images of it, so thank you for posting these! Now I hope that we can continue to keep them looking that nice!
If only! 251 last ran in 1954 but was a poor steamer by then as her superheater had been removed but the flues had not been reduced in size to suit. Of the locomotives in the national collection I doubt it's return to steam is a priority but you can never say never. Looking at the preservation scene today in the U.K nothing is impossible projects making progress right now include new build Patriot 4-6-0 'The unknown warrior' new build Clan 4-6-2 'Hengist' new build P2 2-8-2 (subscriptions already well ahead of target) new build LMS Co-Co diesel electric new build NER G5 0-4-4T return to steam of Flying Scotsman after its recent woes return to running condition of prototype HST power car 41001 continuing progress on returning 'Brighton Belle' 3rd rail trrain to mainline running recent triumphs include 90 mph runs of Bittern on ECML mainline running of Great Western steam railmotor and between now and march the 5th we have no less than seven different steam locos hauling railtours on the mainline! happy times indeed Kev
The superheater assembly could be remanufactured and re-installed? Providing funding was available? Here in the USA, there is too often a poor public attitude toward such historic preservation. Stemming from very inadequate public education about how vital transportation has been to our history. Often, those doing such work with railroading are treated like odd creatures, or people who failed to grow up, etc. So too much gets scrapped. In recent decades, too many times a town has demolished their old depot, then lived to regret it. Demanded an old decaying steamer display be removed, (decaying due to their own negligence!), and it has been lost to scrap. For a nation of our size, ability, and population, much more should and could be done.
Really impressive locomotive design. Aesthetically just screams "fast" even when standing still. And the 37 is a big bonus to me, as I love the look of them!
We're very luck to have six of these survive into presentation, a tribute to the historical significance of Mallard's achievements another survivor is 60009 'Union of South Africa' still pounding out the miles on railtours here is some video I shot of it back in 1996, admittedly not doing 90mph as it was working the Midland 'Old Road' freight line at the time but still looks as if it is going fast! [video=youtube_share;hbCq461umn4]http://youtu.be/hbCq461umn4[/video] Kev
Great stuff, Kev. I had forgotten that the US residing engines had been shipped back "home." Very nice coverage, and thank you.
Super pictures Kev. Living abroad I missed out on the A4 festivals and have always enjoyed visits to Barrow Hill, truly a unique place. I did actually visit there back in 'real steam' days! We will shortly be moving back to live in England, so will maybe get to see more steam in action.