No. 1466 (4866)
Status: Overhaul to commence early 2018 – planned to steam 2021 Location: Didcot Railway Centre Owners: Great Western Society Built: Swindon, 1936 Withdrawn: Taunton, December 28 1963
Like the South Devon Railway, the Great Western Society has designs on returning its ‘14XX’ to service for its most important anniversary, just a few years from now. 2021 will mark 60 years of the GWS, and there’s only one way to celebrate this – by steaming the little locomotive that started it all: No. 1466. It was in August 1961 that four schoolboys – Jon Barlow, Angus Davies, Mike Peart and Graham Perry – first mooted the idea of saving a ‘14XX’ and autocoach, to represent the typical GWR branch line train for future generations. Little did they realise they had planted the seed that would eventually grow into the mighty preservation oak of Didcot Railway Centre. The society duly purchased No. 1466 from BR for £750 in April 1964, but more than five decades later it is estimated that it will cost up to £200,000 to put the engine back into working order. Of this, approximately £165,000 has been raised by an appeal first launched in 2012 (SR405), with further donations welcomed by the GWS at Didcot Railway Centre, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 7NJ, marked for No. 1466. It is planned to begin the ‘14XX’s’ overhaul – its third ‘heavy general’ in preservation – early in 2018, with the aim of returning it to steam by 2021. Last steamed in 2000, it is known to need heavy boiler repairs, and a replacement firebox backplate has already been pressed by South Devon Railway Engineering, sharing the cost with one for No. 1420. As detailed in SR474, it is part of a bigger plan to restore up to four tank engines for operation at the centre by 2021 – but, says Chairman Richard Croucher, the ‘14XX’ is the main priority: “No. 1466 is the one we definitely want back for 2021, to mark the 60th anniversary.”