GWR 4073 Class 7027 Thornbury Castle
7027 Thornbury Castle was built in August 1949. Its first shed allocation was Plymouth Laira. Its March 1959 shed allocation was Old Oak Common. Its last shed allocation was Reading. It was withdrawn in December 1963 and arrived at Woodham Brothers scrapyard in Barry, South Wales in May 1964.
Preservation
7027 was sold to the then Birmingham Railway Museum and left as the 23rd departure from Barry in August 1972. After being purchased by Pete Waterman's Transport Trust, she was stored outside the Crewe Heritage Centre in her Barry Scrapyard condition. Some parts of 7027 are currently in use on elder sibling "5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe" and one set of name and number plates for 7027 are mounted on a wall of the main hall of The Castle School in Thornbury, South Gloucestershire. Following the removal of Waterman's railway equipment from the former LNWR site in 2016, she was moved to Peak Rail in April 2016.
In July 2016, 7027 was purchased from the Waterman Trust for an undisclosed sum by transport enthusiast Jon Jones-Pratt, owner of 4936 Kinlet Hall and the revived Crosville Motor Services, who plans to restore the engine to full mainline standards.[1] Restoration has started at the Crosville depot in Weston-super-Mare.
References
- ^ "Thornbury Castle to steam in six years". Steam Railway. 5 August 2016. Retrieved 11 August 2016.