The Cotswold Festival of Steam - First Guest Announced

The Cotswold Festival of Steam is closing in on us again, May 23rd - 25th.  The first item of news is that there is now a dedicated Facebook page set up to make announcements regarding locos.  Should you be social media savvy, then click on and then like this link for the latest gala news.  Perhaps naively optimistically, we'll try to synchronise announcements over there and here on this blog. The tools for updating the official GWSR web pages are fiendishly complicated and designed to perplex even the most ardent technophile, they will catch up as and when somebody feels brave or more accurately foolish enough to try.

Yesterday, a teaser for the first gala visitor to be confirmed was placed on the Facebook page:

  
 The axle box in particular is a give away.  In case that wasn't enough of a clue, I can now reveal the identity of the mystery loco. Not exactly the gala visitor you might expect, but she fits our theme and purposes perfectly.  Coming to us by the kind permission of the Somerset & Dorset Railway Heritage Trust and Andy Chapman, is  Sentinel, 0-4-0VBT, 7109, Joyce:

Photo copyright Callum Willcox

 For those who may not be familiar with this variety of locomotive, she really is steam powered, not diesel, in spite of her looks.  Don't be put off by the small size either, with a boiler pressure of 275 PSI, she can produce a highly respectable maximum tractive effort of 15,500 lbf.

Photo copyright Sean Duddon

 She is rather different to anything in our home fleet, with a vertical boiler and chain drive to her driving wheels and poppet valve gear.  

Although surprisingly powerful, she has neither the water range, nor the speed to cope with hauling passenger trains along our line whilst keeping up with the requirements of the timetable. She will however be used for shunting demonstrations at Winchcombe in the same way that we did with the Caley Tank last year, which proved remarkably popular.  It is very much hoped that she will be taking a short rake from Toddington to Winchcombe first thing in the morning and returning with it at the end of each gala day as well.

Photo copyright Callum Willcox

 The theme for the gala will be withheld for a while, but it shouldn't be too hard to guess.   The 22C shedplate is unfortunately fictitious so that won't help, but there is plenty more in the above photo to help you.

Photo copyright Harry McConnell

 Expect more announcements, both here and on the new Facebook page in the near future.