GWR 7800 Class 7821 Ditcheat Manor

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Great Western Railway 7800 Class No. 7821 Ditcheat Manor is a preserved British steam locomotive.

The second of the last batch of 10 engines of her thirty-strong class, she was actually built by British Railways in 1950. Like most of her class of lightweight 4-6-0s, she was allocated to lines in Mid Wales, but was also based Oxley and Newton Abbott. 7821 was withdrawn in November 1965 and was sent to Woodham Brothers scrapyard in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales.

Rescued from Barry in 1980, it was sent to the embryonic Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway, before moving to the Llangollen Railway and then Swindon, restoration being completed in 1998, when it first steamed at the West Somerset Railway. The loco then worked on the Great Central Railway in Leicestershire, but in late 2005 moved to the Cambrian Railways Trust after its owner Ken Ryder had a falling-out with GCR management. 7821 moved again in 2005 to the Churnet Valley Railway where she spent its last months of its boiler ticket in traffic.

After being sold to the West Somerset Railway Association in 2007, 7821 was first moved to Williton railway station, and then in 2010 to Bishops Lydeard railway station whilst funding is raised for its overhaul. On 14 November 2010 the loco was moved by road to the Museum of the Great Western Railway at Swindon, for static display for up to five years.

[edit] Allocations

First shed Nov 1950	March 1959	May 1965	Last Shed
Oswestry	Tyseley	Wolverhampton Oxley	Shrewsbury