BEAMISH Museum’s September 9/10 Autumn Transport Gala featured visits by Martyn Ashworth’s Avonside 0-4-0T Ogwen (2066/1933) and Moseley RailwayTrust’s Hudswell Clarke‘Ganges’class 0-6-0WT 1238/1916, which has become known as Ashanti.
The appearance of Ogwen enabled a reunion with Graham Morris’Andrew Barclay 0-4-0WT Glyder (1994/1931), which resides at Beamish. Both were originally supplied to Durham CountyWater Board (DCWB) to work on the Burnhope Dam contract in the early 1930s, then being named Durham and Grey.
The pair were subsequently sold to the Penrhyn slate quarry operation in NorthWales, where Durham became Ogwen and Grey became Glyder.
As the Penrhyn operation ran down, both locos were exported to the USA. When they were repatriated in April 2012, they were both initially stored at Beamish. Ogwen was subsequently moved away for restoration at‘Workshop X’, while Glyder was returned to operational condition at Beamish. The Autumn Transport Gala was the first time they had been in steam together since the 1930s at Burnhope.
Avonside 0-4-0T Ogwen (left) and Glyder pause together at Beamish on September 9, the first time they had been in steam together since the 1930s – a few miles from Beamish high on the Durham moors at Burnhope reservoir, near Wearhead.
MICHAEL DENHOLM