The Cotswold Festival of Steam - Second Guest Announced

We are now in the position of being able to reveal the second guest engine at this year's Cotswold Festival of Steam gala being held on May 23rd - 25th.  

Courtesy of Southern Locomotives LTD and the Swanage Railway, we are delighted to announce 34072, 257 Squadron:

Bulleid light pacific, 34072, 257 Squadron.  Photo copyright David Stubbings

The light pacifics were a mixed traffic design for the Southern Railway by their Chief Mechanical Engineer, Oliver Bulleid.  The design is a smaller, lighter version of the Merchant Navy class, of which our home fleet resident, 35006, Peninsular & Oriental S.N. Co is an example.  A total of 110 light pacifics were built between 1945 & 1951, 60 of which were rebuilt by British Railways, losing the distinctive air smoothed casing in the process.  257 Squadron is one of the 50 that remained "unrebuilt" and of course one of the 20 that has survived into the preservation era, mostly through the blessing of having been despatched to Woodham Bros scrapyard at Barry, where, in spite of the name, relatively few locos were scrapped.

34072, 257 Squadron (Photo Copyright David Stubbings)

 The Bulleid light pacifics had a number of innovative features in their original form; a steam reverser, electric lighting driven by a steam powered generator, chain driven valve gear held in an oil bath, steam operated firehole door and a welded steel firebox.

34072, 257 Squadron passing Corfe Castle on the Swanage Railway (Photo Copyright David Stubbings)

Being a wartime design, it is little surprise that around half of the class were named after famous fighter squadrons or high ranking members of the RAF that had taken part in the Battle of Britain.  The remainder were named after holiday destinations in the West of England served by the Southern Railway.  

Details of two more visiting locomotives will hopefully be announced in the near future and don't forget, information on the gala can be found not just here, but on the new Facebook page and of course the official GWSR website
 
Advance tickets are available online at the main GWSR web page, please click on this link to place your order.

Finally, nothing to do with the gala, other than the fact that she is a member of our home fleet, there will soon be a 00 gauge model available of Dinmore Manor, available from Dapol. The model (lined black and with a Churchward 3,500 gallon tender) will also be available in the Station Shop at Toddington.  I can hardly wait!