The West Somerset Railway (WSR) is a 22.75-mile (36.6 km) heritage railway line in Somerset, England.
It originally opened in 1862 between Taunton and Watchet. In 1874 it was extended from Watchet to Minehead by the Minehead Railway. The line was closed by British Rail in 1971 and reopened in 1976 as a heritage line. It‘s the longest standard gauge independent heritage railway in the United Kingdom.
In order shown below:
4464 'Bittern' is a London & North Eastern Railway Class A4 steam locomotive. Built for the LNER in 1937 at Doncaster Works it was renumbered 60019 by British Railways on 10 October 1948.
It’s a Pacific 4-6-2 locomotive to the same design by Nigel Gresley as the more famous A4 Mallard, holder of the world speed record for steam locomotives at 126 mph (203 km/h) achieved on 3 July 1938.
It’s one of six to survive into preservation.
60163 'Tornado' is a mainline steam locomotive built in Darlington, England. Completed in 2008, Tornado was the first such locomotive built in the UK since Evening Star, the last steam locomotive built by British Railways in 1960.
It’s the only example of an LNER Peppercorn Class A1 locomotive in existence, the entirety of the original production batch having been scrapped without preservation.
The Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway (S&DJR) 7F 2-8-0 is a class of steam locomotive designed for hauling heavy coal and goods trains. Eleven were built in two batches in 1914 and 1925, and were used until withdrawn between 1959 and 1964. Two are preserved as Nos. 53808 & 53809.
GWR Railmotor No. 93 is the world’s sole surviving operational steam Railmotor.
Restored to as-built 1908 condition both internally and externally, and painted in the GWR’s original coach livery of crimson lake.
It was built at Swindon in 1908, as one of 35 virtually vehicles ordered by the GWR between 1905 and 1908.
It was initially allocated to Southall, West London and was later reallocated to other depots including Bristol, Croes Newydd, Chalford, Gloucester, Stourbridge, Taunton and Yatton.
No 93 was condemned as a Railmotor at Swindon on 19 November 1934 and was converted into auto trailer No 212. The auto trailer was condemned in May 1956, but instead of being scrapped was converted into a ‘work study coach’ with the BR internal user number 079014.
It then became used as an office in Birmingham, and was bought by the GWS in 1970 taking some 14 years to restore.
92203 'Black Prince' was built at Swindon and delivered in 1959. Then withdrawn in 1967 after a working life of less than nine years pulling heavy iron ore trains.
One of 251 class 2-10-0s built to the design of R.A.Riddles as the standard ‘heavy freight’ locomotive for British Railways. The locomotive was purchased from BR by the artist David Shepherd for £3,000. He named her Black Prince, a name never carried by 92203 in British Railways service.
71000 'Duke of Gloucester' was a class 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotive designed by R.A. Riddles for use by British Railways. Only the prototype was constructed named 'Duke of Gloucester'.
Constructed in 1954, the Duke, as it’s popularly known, was a replacement for the destroyed LMS Princess Royal Class locomotive no. 46202 'Princess Anne', which was involved in the Harrow and Wealdstone rail disaster of 1952.
The locomotive was operational for only eight years and was saved from being scrapped when it was purchased by a group of railway enthusiasts who restored it to as-built condition in 13 years.
