PENDENNIS CASTLE stands outside of Didcot Locomotive Shed. It could be the 1930s rather than the 2020s.

The Great Western Society (GWS) was offered the use of the former Didcot locomotive depot, taking it over in 1967. In the 1970s, the society negotiated a long-term lease with BR which was to expire in 2019. But this was subject to a six-month termination clause which could force the GWS to quit the site, and which could be operated at any point in time by lease-holder Network Rail (NR).

In an attempt to secure a long-term future for the society, in 2002 the GWS opened negotiations with NR to either purchase the site or extend the lease. In a letter dated May 2007, NR informed the GWS that they were prepared to sell the site subject to Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) approval.
It had been thought the site could be subject to need as a depot, either due to: the rebuilding of Reading station; a Crossrail project depot; or the Intercity Express Programme. After expressing some concern at the slow speed of negotiations at the GWS annual meeting in September 2008, NR wrote to the GWS to advise that the site was no longer available for sale, and although a lease extension was still on offer it was still subject to the previous six-month termination clause.

The GWS then wrote to their local MP Ed Vaizey, and placed any long-term development plans on hold. As of 6 October 2011 Richard Croucher (Chairman of the Great Western Society) signed a new 50-year lease with Network Rail, therefore preserving the site for at least another 50 years.

For more photographs of the Didcot Railway Centre please click here: www.jhluxton.com/Railways-and-Tramways/Railway-Museums/Gr...

Tags:   2022 British Railways Western Region Didcot England GWR Great Western Railway Great Western Society John H. Luxton Photography Leica Leica M www.jhluxton.com Leica ME240 Museum Oxfordshire Western Region eisenbahn railway railway heritage railway museum rheilffordd United Kingdom MONOCHROME B&W BLACKANDWHITE

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4079 PENDENNIS CASTLE at Didcot

For more photographs of the Didcot Railway Centre please click here: www.jhluxton.com/Railways-and-Tramways/Railway-Museums/Gr...

The Castle Class 4-6-0 is one of the most celebrated locomotive types of the former Great Western Railway. The prototype, No.4073 ‘Caerphilly Castle’ rolled out of Swindon Works in August 1923, the first of a series that remained in production right up to 1950.

No.4079 ‘Pendennis Castle’ was the seventh of 171 Castles built and was completed at Swindon in February 1924.
‘'Pendennis Castle's’ claim to fame dates from 1925 when the GWR lent the locomotive to the London & North Eastern Railway for trials against Sir Nigel Gresley's mighty new Pacifics exemplified by No.4472 ‘Flying Scotsman’. Working 16-coach trains on the East Coast main line from Kings Cross, the stalwart Castle covered itself in soot and glory, thoroughly out-performing its larger competitors. Her exploits were the talk of every schoolboy in Britain and the GWR rather cheekily sent ‘Pendennis Castle’ to stand alongside ‘Flying Scotsman’ at the 1925 British Empire Exhibition at Wembley with a notice proclaiming her to be the most powerful passenger express locomotive in Britain.

After withdrawal in 1964, ‘Pendennis Castle’ was purchased for preservation by Mike Higson and appeared at one of the Great Western Society's first open days in 1965. It was soon sold to the Hon. John Gretton and Sir William McAlpine and was based at Didcot just before the GWS established Didcot Railway Centre. In 1977 the locomotive was sold again, this time to Hamersley Iron - one of the largest iron ore producers in Australia - for use on excursion trains on the company's 240-mile ore-carrying railway in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

No.4079 left England on 29 May 1977. In Australia, she was looked after by the Pilbara Railways Historical Society, formed by Hamersley employees, and worked many excursion trains through the Chichester Ranges. A highlight of the Australian sojourn was a visit to Perth in 1989 to operate alongside her old rival ‘Flying Scotsman’ as the climax of a tour during the country's bicentennial celebrations. However, vastly increasing traffic on the Hamersley railway combined with operational difficulties resulted in No.4079 being stored out of use for several years, her final steaming in Australia taking place in October 1994.
With prospects for an operational future in Australia looking uncertain, Hamersley Iron began to consider the options. The main concern was to find a new home that could offer a secure future, which would recognise the significance of her English heritage and provide a high degree of public accessibility. It was also important that the engine should not become a stand-alone exhibit, but should play its part in illustrating the wider picture of GWR locomotive development.
The decision to offer ‘Pendennis Castle’ to the Great Western Society was made in the first days of 2000. In return, the Great Western Society agreed to arrange and pay for the repatriation, restoration to full main-line running condition.

The locomotive was formally presented to the Society by Hamersley Iron on 19 April. Following a 10-week voyage ‘Pendennis Castle’ finally regained British soil on 8 July 2000, 23 years, 1 month and 8 days after she left.

The cost of repatriation to Britain had been met by generous donations from British enthusiasts and a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Pendennis Castle's route was via the Pacific Rim, the Panama Canal, the Eastern Seaboard of the USA and across the Atlantic - the opposite way to her outward journey - making No.4079 the first 4-6-0 steam locomotive to circumnavigate the world, and only the second steam loco to do so after ‘Flying Scotsman’.

There's no doubt that the repatriation of ‘Pendennis Castle’ has warmed many hearts that were saddened when the engine left for Australia.

‘Pendennis Castle’ was launched into traffic at a special event at Didcot Railway centre on 2nd April 2022.

Tags:   2022 British Railways Western Region Didcot England GWR Great Western Railway Great Western Society John H. Luxton Photography Leica Leica M www.jhluxton.com Leica ME240 Museum Oxfordshire Western Region eisenbahn railway railway heritage railway museum rheilffordd United Kingdom

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18000 is one of a pair of prototype gas turbine power engines ordered by the GWR from private companies but were not delivered until after nationalisation in 1948.

For more photographs of the Didcot Railway Centre please click here: www.jhluxton.com/Railways-and-Tramways/Railway-Museums/Gr...

18000 was constructed by Brown Boveri in Switzerland and spent its working life hauling trains from Paddington before being withdrawn from service as uneconomic in 1960.

The prototype gas turbine locomotives, as one-off’s, were both unreliable and prone to failures and spent much of their short working lives in Swindon works either being repaired or modified.

After with withdrawal 18000 was offered to the European Office for Research and Development and was moved back to Switzerland, where the gas turbine was removed and the locomotive modified to be an unpowered test bed.

Once these experiments were concluded the locomotive was put on display outside the Mechanical Engineering Testing building in Vienna in 1975.

The loco was eventually secured for preservation in the UK in the early 1990s and Initially put on display at the Crewe Heritage Centre and after a spell at the G&WSR was moved to Didcot Railway Centre in 2011.

The loco has acquired the nickname 'Kerosene Castle'.

In early 2022 it was announced that work would begin on a two year conservation project to repair corrosion on the bodywork, and return the locomotive to the black and silver livery it carried when first in service.

Tags:   2022 British Railways Western Region Didcot England GWR Great Western Railway Great Western Society John H. Luxton Photography Leica Leica M www.jhluxton.com Leica ME240 Museum Oxfordshire Western Region eisenbahn railway railway heritage railway museum rheilffordd United Kingdom KEROSENE CASTLE 18000

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A GWR long wheelbase (16' 0") ROTANK wagon, designed to carry a 4 or 6 wheel road trailer.

The wagon and tanker were cosmetically restored and repainted in the summer of 2021.

H & G Simonds Ltd was a brewery founded in Reading, Berkshire, England in 1785 by William Blackall Simonds. The company amalgamated with Courage & Barclay in 1960 and dropped the Simonds name after ten years. Eventually the firm became part of Scottish & Newcastle who sold the brands to Wells & Young's Brewery in 2007 and closed the Reading brewery three years later.

Simonds supplied many of the railways in southern England. By the 1880s, Simonds was the largest brewery in Reading. After the First World War, they expanded by acquisition, purchasing local breweries as well as others in places such as Bristol and Devonport.

By 1938, Simonds' was producing just over one percent of all beer brewed in England and Wales. The brewery made extensive use of the canal to deliver its wares, but the railway was also an important form of transport, with the brewery having its own siding off the Coley branch line.

For more photographs of the Didcot Railway Centre please click here: www.jhluxton.com/Railways-and-Tramways/Railway-Museums/Gr...

Tags:   2022 British Railways Western Region Didcot England GWR Great Western Railway Great Western Society John H. Luxton Photography Leica Leica M www.jhluxton.com Leica ME240 Museum Oxfordshire Western Region eisenbahn railway railway heritage railway museum rheilffordd United Kingdom SIMONDS BEER

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0-4-2T 1466 built at Swindon Works in 1936 seen at the Great Western Society Didcot Depot in September 1984.

CameraL Contax 137 + Carl Zeiss 50mm f1.7 Planar lens. Agfa CT200 film.

More 35mm Archive Images of GWS at Didcot please click here: www.jhluxton.com/The-35mm-Film-Archive/Railways/Great-Wes...

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