17th April, 2024
Surprise final visitor announcement for Spring Steam Spectacular!
As a surprise final guest engine, we are delighted to announce that joining us for the Spring Steam Spectacular (Friday 3rd May to Monday 6th May) will be Hunslet 0-6-0 no.1873 'Jessie'. Bet nobody was expecting that! 'Jessie' appears at the WSR for the first time courtesy of owner Mike Pearce and her home, the Blaenavon Heritage Railway. Thank you to both for the hire of the locomotive.
'Jessie' was built in 1937 and went on to spend her whole working life at East Moors steelworks in Cardiff. There the engine was used to move huge wagons, full of molten iron ore around the site. Her life in preservation has been much more varied, from starting out on display in a play park in Cardiff, to being converted to appear as a certain famous little blue number 1 side tank loco! Now back converted to her original form, and in original livery as she worked in the steelworks. This will be the engine's final appearance in her current livery, with a repaint planned for her return.
During the Spring Steam Spectacular, 'Jessie' will work a variety of different turns, and there will be opportunities to travel behind this plucky little loco on the Saturday 4th, Sunday 5th and Monday 6th. She will be working the pick-up Goods turn up to Washford on Friday 3rd, Saturday 4th and Monday 6th. Whilst we don't have any 100 ton steel wagons to recreate her steelworks days, she will look a treat shunting our wagon fleet!
Tickets to see 'Jessie' and 7 other locomotives in action are available to pre-book at the link here - https://www.west-somerset-railway.co.uk/events/view/spring-steam-spectacular
Image courtesy of Declan Hargreaves