A Change of Scenery

It's been a little while since the last update on these pages, but a few things have happened worthy of note.

To start with, in February, a few original fittings from 2874 were acquired.  Len successfully bid on 2874's smoke box number plate which came up for auction and your humble scribe swapped a cabside number plate from 2876 for one from 2874.   A photo of the plates reattached to the loco even made it into Steam Railway magazine.

Len, after successfully bidding on the smoke box number plate

The cabsides being swapped

During the recent "Speed to the West" steam gala taking place on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway,  Bulleid pacific, 35006, Peninsular & Oriental S.N. Co's usual spot on display in the car park was up for grabs as 35006 was shunted down to Winchcombe for display in the bay platform.  I arranged for 2874 to be shunted into the car park and for the plates to be temporarily reattached.  The DMLL group had a stall in the nearby trade stands marquee and having one of our locos (Dinmore Manor) in steam running up and down the line, as well as having 2874 just outside the marquee caused a fair amount of interest in the group. 

Smoke box plate attached and DMLL literature where the buffers should be

Cabside attached

Centre stage in the car park at Toddington

Once the gala had finished, she returned to her usual spot in the yard on road 4 and further work has taken place on extracting boiler tubes:

Evidence of activity strewn across the yard

 Steve has managed to cut out enough of the smoke box tubeplate (wasted beyond reuse) to gain access to the inside of the boiler.

Steve is down there somewhere

 Finally, a reminder of how she once was and how she will be again.  The same auction that provided the smoke box number plate also turned up this photo of 2874 in Shrewsbury

Photo courtesy of M. L. Boakes

The early BR 'cycling lion' logo indicates that this shot was taken no earlier than 1950.  I haven't seen any photos of 2874 with the later (1956 and onwards) 'ferret & dartboard' logo, so it isn't impossible that she stayed like this until withdrawal on 31st May 1963.