Visiting engines included Ffestiniog Railway’s Prince, ex-SR
Schools Class, Repton and the Terrier, Bluebell. It was the 105-year-old Great
Eastern Railway Y14 No. 564 that really caught the eye, though. Now the
property of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway Society, she was in
GER blue livery at the head of the SVR’s teak set. Built at Stratford works to
a Worsdell 1883 design, 564 was later re-classified as an LNER J15. These 0-6-0
locomotives made up the most numerous of all the GER classes but 564 was the
last one in service, being withdrawn from BR as No. 65462 in 1962. She is a
remarkable working survivor.
The SVR gala is a thoroughly enjoyable highlight of the
preservation movement’s year. Once more, the Guild of Railway Artists’ Railart
exhibition coincided with the gala event, located above the museum at
Kidderminster station. It combined contributions from acknowledged big hitters
like Philip D Hawkins, Eric Bottomley, Malcolm Root, Gerald Broom and John
Austin together with some other less familiar names and more diverse
interpretations of the railway scene. I’m always pleased to see the work of Rob
Rowland, David Halliwell, David French and Chris Holland represented.
David Charlesworth’s painting of an Indian Railways scene
reminds me of a snippet I read courtesy of MSN news, which my computer insists
I peruse before I’m allowed to go anywhere else [I could probably change that].
Indian Railway are the 6th biggest employers in the world with 1.4
million staff and they carry 8.1 billion passengers a year. So, there you are.
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