Betton Grange confirmed for ‘GlosWarks’ and East Somerset galas
NEW-BUILD COLLETT ‘Grange’ No. 6880 Betton Grange has already been booked for not one but two galas this spring.
The first will be the East Somerset Railway’s 50th anniversary gala on March 16/17. The ‘68XX’ 4-6-0 will be the star guest at the event, running alongside ESR residents ‘Large Prairie’ No. 4110, Ivatt ‘2MT’ 2-6-0 No. 46447, and Andrew Barclay 0-4-0ST Works No. 1719 ‘Lady Nan’, with the latter providing ‘Driver for a Tenner’ experiences at Cranmore.
Betton Grange will then help recreate a lost part of GWR history on March 23, when it hauls the longest steam-hauled milk tanker train in preservation for a 30742 Charters photo charter. The group is trying to raise £4,000 to bring four milk tank wagons to the ESR for the charter; combined with the ESR’s pair of milk tankers, the six-tank rake will be the longest assembled since the 1990s, when five or six vehicles were brought together at the Severn Valley Railway for a diesel gala, although three left the railway before a charter with Collett 2-6-0 No. 7325 could take place. To support the appeal, visit www.tickettailor.com/events/30742charters/1141356
The next gala Betton Grange is booked to attend is the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway’s annual Cotswold Festival of Steam, on May 25-27. No. 6880 is the first guest locomotive confirmed for the ‘Western Workhorses’-themed event. Although the final line-up was yet to be confirmed at the time of going to press, two of the GWSR’s resident two-cylinder Swindon-built 4-6-0s are also expected to run: ‘Modified Hall’ No. 7903 Foremarke Hall and ‘Manor’ No. 7820 Dinmore Manor, the design of the latter being derived from the ‘Granges’.