Taff Vale tank for Bluebell Railway’s April Branch Line Weekend
KEIGHLEY & Worth Valley Railwaybased 0-6-2T No. 85 will visit the Bluebell Railway this coming spring to take part in the line’s Branch Line Weekend on April 3-5.
The 1899-built Taff Vale Railway (TVR) ‘02’ will make the journey to the Bluebell line from its home at the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway (KWVR) especially for the Branch Line event, which gives the smaller locomotives in the Bluebell fleet a chance to hog the limelight.
Last year’s gala proved to be hugely popular, featuring an
LSWR get-together that included the Isle of Wight Steam Railway’s ex-LSWR ‘O2’ No. W24 Calbourne, Beattie 2-4-0WT No. 30587, and the BR black debut of solesurviving Adams‘Radial’4-4-2T No. 30583, albeit non-operational.
Absorbed
No. 85 was built for the TVR by Neilson Reid and absorbed into the Great Western Railway stocklist at the Grouping.
In 1927, the loco, by then GWR No. 426, was withdrawn and sold two years later to the Lambton, Hetton & Joicey Collieries in County Durham.
It remained in service there until 1968 and, following withdrawal by the National Coal Board, arrived on the KWVR in December 1970.
A second visiting locomotive is planned, although this had not been announced by the time this issue of The RM went to press.
Joining them from the Bluebell’s home fleet will be ‘H’ class 0-4-4T No. 263, ‘O1’ 0-6-0 No. 65 and the diminutive ‘P’ class 0-6-0T No. 178.
Together they will work a packed timetable of passenger and demonstration goods services, with further details found at: www.bluebell-railway. com/whats_on/branch-lineweekend-3/