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Grand days of steam revived in south Shropshire
Wednesday 15th June 2011, 10:09AM BST.
The 6024 King Edward I near Dorrington with the Lawley Hill in the background. The train is on its way to Shrewsbury. Picture: John Bentley.
A stunning 1930s steam train chugged through south Shropshire for the first time this weekend on a nostalgic rail journey.
The 6024 King Edward I had never before visited stations in Leominster, Ludlow, Craven Arms and Church Stretton.
The luxury restored locomotive, also known as The Cathedral Express, was carrying 500 passengers on a round trip from London to Shrewsbury, stopping for lunch and shopping in towns along the way.
Marcus Robertson, whose Steam Dreams company ran the trip, hoped it would be the first of many through the south of the county, with the train having already visited Shrewsbury several times.
Mr Robertson said: “It’s a beautiful part of the world and it gives us many good places for our guests to relax and enjoy themselves.
“We are actually already planning to do it again later in the year, so we can get to Ludlow for the market at Christmas time.”
The King Edward I train was one a batch of 30 built by the Great Western Railway. It is now limited to a maximum of 75mph, but in its prime it would have regularly hit three-figure speeds.
It was rescued from a scrapyard in the 1970 by the King Preservation Society and restored by 1989, when it was recommissioned by the Duke of Gloucester.
The Cathedral Express left London Paddington at 8.04am on Saturday and travelled via Bristol to arrive at Shrewsbury at 2.43pm. After a two-and-a-half hour stop in the county town, it returned to the capital, arriving in at 11.32pm.
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What a sloppy piece of reporting journalism! … the Steam Locomotive #6024 King Edward 1 was a 4-6-0 4 Cylinder Express Passenger Locomotive built at the Swindon Works for the Great Western Railway! … no way should it be described as a Luxury Locomotive! …. I had an Uncle who fired one of these beasts and he would call it something else.
The Train is called the “Cathedral Express” .. not the Locomotive! …. a short pants youngster from my boyhood could have written a better article.
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Thanks for saving me the effort of typing that Woolibuga!
My Granddad was a driver on the Western Sheds at Salop and he always used to go on about the Castle Class, on which the Kings were based – he loved them!
The Kings were the most powerful passenger engines in the UK at the time of their introduction….
….that’s enough for now – I’ve got to iron my anorak…
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As an addendum to your post Rob,Telford! ..
The CME’s of the Great Western spurned the Pacific format 4-6-2 and put their faith in their surefooted 4-6-0′s Manor’s Hall’s Castle’s and King’s! … The King’s were built to haul the heavy summertime Trains to the West Country and do away with the costly Double Heading of it’s Competitors! .. the canny insight of the heads of the Great Western paid off and the Great Western emerged from the grouping with it’s entity intact. .. The fact that an ounce of Coal burnt under the conditions of a Locomotive Firebox would produce enough energy to haul one ton one mile was lost in the insanity of the scrapping of almost new equipment in the Sixties.
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