18/5/24
Last weekend, I made my first visit to the Perrygrove Railway, a 15in gauge railway situated in Coleford, not far from the Dean Forest Railway! This is a lovely line, whilst it may appear short, the track layout itself in my opinion makes it feel much longer and exciting in my opinion!
This was the Perrygroves Steam Gala, in which they had a roster of 7 locomotives! All available home fleet locomotives were in action alongside three visiting steam locomotives too!
Jack unfortunately wasn't able to participate due to the track gauges being wider in some areas leading to it derailing, so was kept on display at Perrygrove, this marked its first public appearance in many years, it is also currently for sale by the Steam Workshop, who overhauled it. St Egwin was nice to see again, having had it for haulage at Evesham, its home, and was also great to see Katie, having only seen a glimpse of undercover in the sheds, looked lovely with the estate Goods train, very fitting!
I think my personal favourite home fleet was Lydia, a very big engine for the line, very unique and therefore of interest to me, curious driving arrangement on it too. Soonie was a cute little engine, admittedly a very sooty engine (had to be provided goggles!), still amazing none the less. All in all, a very nice gala indeed!
The locos were as follows;
Home Fleet:
. Spirit of Adventure
. Anne
. Lydia
. Mr Hallworth
. Soony
. Workhorse (diesel on shunting)
Guest locos:
. St Egwin
(Courtesy of Evesham Valley Light Railway)
. Jack
(Presently Courtesy of the Steam Workshop) (Static Display)
. Katie
(Courtesy of Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway)