‘County’ 4-4-0 for ‘GlosWarks’

NEW-BUILD CHURCHWARD ‘County’ 4-4-0 No. 3840 County of Montgomery is set to be based at the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway when it is completed.

The railway has signed an agreement with the Churchward County Trust for the Cheltenham Broadway line to have first refusal on the replica ‘38XX’ when it steams, superseding an earlier ‘agreement in principle’ between the two organisations. The move would be historically appropriate, as members of the original class hauled Wolverhampton Penzance express es over the full Cheltenham-Stratford-upon-Avon route owing to weight restrictions preventing larger locomotives crossing Stonehouse Viaduct.

GWSR plc chairman Richard Johnson said: “While we clearly don’t know what our railway’s locomotive requirements will be in ten or 15 years, which is when the new ‘County’ is likely to be available, I’m thrilled that we are being offered first choice for the engine’s future base.”

CCT chairman Gary Boyd-Hope added: “I’m both thrilled and grateful that we have been able to turn our previous ‘agreement in principle’ into something more formal. The line will – hopefully – make the perfect home for County of Montgomery.”

●● Elsewhere, Trefoil Steel of Sheffield will cast No. 3840’s coupled wheels, using a pattern for those on ‘Saint’ Lady of Legend, loaned from the Great Western Society.