but from the breakers yard, after spending £700,000 and 60,000 hours of voluntary work over 21 years, 125 amateur enthusiasts have brought the King Edward II locomotive at Didcot Railway Centre back to life, all 128 tons of him, He might have been arguably the worst King in English history but, finally, Edward II has something to be proud of, the much-mocked monarch, who heaped favours on his boyfriends, lost the Battle of Bannockburn and notoriously went to his maker courtesy of a red-hot poker in a painful place, there is even a plant named allegedly after the incident the Red Hot Poker, (Kniphofia), but on with the story,
Edward II was built in 1930 at GWR’s Swindon works, back then, the company’s biggest and best express locomotives were named after kings, it spent many years speeding from London along the big routes to Cardiff, Bristol and Plymouth at speeds pretty similar to today’s trains, but restoring the much cannibalised Edward II had always seemed beyond hope, following a shunting mishap in Barry, its wheels had been chopped off in the Sixties, most of its parts had been cannibalised to help restore Edward I, also it just sat in Barry, broken and inert, waiting for the blowtorch, but it was reprieved, the biggest challenge was finding some new wheels, none existed, a consortium of engineering brains spent a long time commissioning a fresh set at a cost of some £30,000,
and what wheels, just look at the size of them! it is so easy as you watch say a Harry Potter movie to forget how big the steam engines of yesteryear really were, now to the good news, rail enthusiasts — from trainspotters to members of the Brunel family — have been flocking to the Didcot Railway Centre in Oxfordshire this month to pay homage to this fabulous feat of restoration, I wish I was there to see it,
3 comments:
A real shame that Edward II met his end via his rear end.
Another "Leviathan" was LMS Jubliee Class no. 45704, built at Crewe in 1936 and scrapped in 1965.
P.S. The "Kings" also pulled trains on the GWR route to Birkenhead, via Birmingham Snow Hill, Wolverhampton Low Level, Shrewsbury & Chester,
Dear Grecian Ern, yes bit of a shame that one, Edward II 't'would bring a tear to a glass eye' as some one once said. I guess a few more of these steam locomotives have been called Leviathan, but for me it is still a strange name for a land object. As well as the routes you mention the Kings cold have been used on a few other routes, they were introduced as more powerful, faster engines to replace the slower but lighter Castle class, but their downfall was their sheer weight, so many routes remanded in the hands of the lighter Castle class they were supposed to replace, I just love steam locomotives! best regards Stan and Diana.
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