North Tyneside’s Victor and Vulcan gala rescheduled
Longbridge Bagnall twins reunion set for end of April.
THE North Tyneside Steam Railway’s (NTSR) postponed ‘Victor & Vulcan Reunion Gala’, which was one of the early casualties of the Covid-19 pandemic in May 2020, has been given a new date for this spring.
The two surviving ‘hi-tech’
Steel Company of Wales (SCOW) Bagnall 0-6-0STs Nos. 401 and 403 will come together at Middle Engine Lane for the three-day event between April 30 and
May 2. It will be the first time the duo has operated together since they left the West Somerset Railway in the 1980s.
The pair – W/Nos. 2994 and 2996 – were built in 1951 as part of a trio of ‘New Standard 18’ locomotives for SCOW’s Abbey, Margam and Port Talbot steelworks. They were amongst the most up-to-date steam locos built to that date, featuring such refinements as Walschaerts valve gear, piston valves, roller bearings, hopper ashpans and rocking grates, self-cleaning smokeboxes and balanced reversing gear.
Careers
During the course of the next six years they were evaluated alongside Bagnall-built diesels, which eventually succeeded them and Nos. 401 and 403 were sold to the Austin Motor
Company at Longbridge. Here they were named Vulcan and Victor respectively and served the Birmingham car maker until 1973 when they were acquired by the fledgling West Somerset Railway.
Victor and Vulcan became key members of the WSR operating fleet, but were eventually replaced by exmain line locomotives and in 1986 Vulcan was sold to the Stephenson Railway Museum and Middle Engine Lane and named after miners’ leader and Northumberland MP, Thomas Burt.
Victor remained on the WSR for a further two years, and after spells at the Strathspey Railway, Battlefield Line and Great
Central Railway (Nottingham), it was purchased in 2009 by the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway. Both locos have since undergone major overhauls, No. 401 (Vulcan) returning to service in 2019 and finished in its original SCOW red livery.
Performances
During the three-day gala the duo will work an intensive timetable of passenger and goods services between Middle Engine Lane and Percy Main. More details will be made available at northtynesiderailway. blogspot.com/ nearer the time.