Bagnall 0-6-0ST No. 401 climbs towards Middle Engine Lane with a goods train during the North Tyneside Steam Railway’s 30th anniversary gala on July 9 last year.
MATT DITCH
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.