Category: News

IMPORTANT – access to our stock at Worth Valley in 2025

Our 4 carriages and Pug 52128 at the Worth Valley Railway are normally on public display in the Exhibition Shed at Oxenhope when out of use.

The Railway Children production, an event connected with the Bradford 2025 City of Culture, is due to take place in the Exhibition Shed during 2025. From May onwards it is expected that the Shed will no longer be open to the public whilst preparations and the actual production take place.

Elsewhere on our website you may see that 3 of our carriages are to be used during the production, but access to them is restricted to ticket holders for the production. Our First Class 6-wheel 279 was hopefully to undergo repairs to remove ‘flats’ from one of the wheelsets but due to various obstacles found with organising the project the work has been deferred until 2026. It may be that 279 is accessible to public view but it should be assumed that this will not be the case.
Similarly Pug 51218 may not be accessible to public view.

752 – further visits to the south in 2025

Saddletank 752 still operating as LMS 11456 will be making two further visits on hire to preserved railways in the South of England.

Firstly to the Mid Hants Railway (the Watercress Line) to operate in their Spring Steam Gala on 25th, 26th and 27th April 2025. Here it operated with Andy Booth’s ‘A’ class 0-6-0 52322. Full details were available on their website, click here (opens in new window). Videos of the event can be found on our Video Online page and still photos on our Photos -stock in use page.

Secondly moving across to the West Somerset Railway to operate in their Spring Steam Spectacular on 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th May 2025. The railways’s website page gives full details of the event, click here (opens in new window)

Expected use of our stock on Worth Valley in 2025 updated April 2025

At the time of initial publication (January 2025) there were no definite dates for use of our stock, this is possibly because they are organising various special events as a result of Bradford being the UK City of Culture 2025. SEE BELOW for updated (April 2025) details of known use of our carriages in 2025

20th to 23rd March – The Steam Gala, for operational reasons our carriages were NOT in use during the March 2025 Gala

Early May Bank Holiday weekend 3rd, 4th and 5th May will be operating Vintage Trains using our carriages as well as two other sets of carriages running with 3 vintage steam locos all weekend, full details can be found on the Worth Valley website click here (opens in new window).

There is also to be a 1940s Weekend in May 2025 which may feature our carriages but that is still to be confirmed, and there may be a further vintage event later in the year, this page will be updated as details become available.

July and August would normally feature our carriages in use on Vintage Trains Weekends but it has now been confirmed that they will not be run in 2025 as the much-travelled ‘Railway Children’ theatrical production is to take place between July 16th and September 7th at Oxenhope.
HOWEVER our carriages will be in use, but not on public services, Third Class 6-wheeler 1507 and Club Carriage 47 are to be used in the theatrical production at Oxenhope, running in the shed with no passengers.
Brake Third 1474 is to be used on a special connecting service between Keighley and Oxenhope exclusively for the use of ticket-holders of the production, and will be providing accomodation for people with accessibility needs.
DETAILS OF THE EVENTS can be found on the Worth Valley website click here

You will see that there is no mention of First 6-wheel 279, this is because it has developed serious ‘flats’ on one of the wheelsets which will require the wheelsets to be removed from the carriage for turning down the tyre depth to remove the flats. 279 was the first choice for use in the Railway Children production but the noise made by the flats on the wheels would have interfered with the ambience of the production. The trustees are currently investigating the best way of resolving the problem.

Expected use of our locos at the East Lancashire Railway in 2025 – updated April 2025

We expect that our working locomotives at the East Lancashire Railway (ELR}, Pug 19 as LMS 11243, and Saddletank 752 as LMS 11456 will be in use in events in 2025, so far we know about the following events but the extent of their use may not be known at the time of initial publication (April 2025) – but this post will be updated as information becomes available.

January 18th – Railway 200 ‘Open-House’ Day featured 11243 in ‘Taster Driver Experience’ sessions and work shuttle service between Bury and Summerseat, details were given on the ELR website, there is a further event in September, see below.

14th to 16th March – Legends of Steam, extent of use of our locos were inititially unclear, due to late alterations only Saddletank 752 as LMS 11456 was used and only on Friday 14th March

10th May, 14th June, 9th August, 27th September, 1st November –
Both Saddletank 752 as LMS 11456 and Pug 19 as LMS 11243 will be operating, 11456 with Andy Booth’s ‘A’ Class 52322 on service trains and 11243 on Driver Experience for a supplementary fare at Bury Bolton Street, these running days have been named ‘LANCASHIRE & YORKSHIRE RUNNING DAYS’ and are currently featured on Facebook but not on the ELR website. More details to follow.

24th to 25th May – Vintage Weekend, full details of loco use not yet available but there is a page on the ELR website giving event details click here

12th to 14th September – Railway 200 Celebration Weekend, full details not available but there is a page on the ELR website click here

17th to 19th October – Autumn Steam Gala, we understand that both locos will feature but full details not yet known, for the ELR website page click here

Expected use of our locos at the East Lancashire Railway in 2024

Images of our locos in use can be found on our page Photos – stock in use and videos mainly from Youtube on our page Video Online

At the first time of first writing in November 2023 it was expected there would be two major steam events in 2024 during which our two operational locos were expected to be in use on the East Lancashire Railway. 7th and 8th September 2024 – there is now an additional event as below featuring our two locos at the railway

Autumn Steam Gala 2024 – Friday 11th to Sunday 13th October, our locos were in use, along with visiting locos 9F 92134 and Furness 20, in fact Pug 19 as 11243 stood in for Furness 20 at the start of the second day.

NEW – Heritage Open Days at Bury Transport Museum – Heritage Open days are taking place at many locations between 6th and 15th September 2024, the events at the Bury Transport Museum (near Bury Bolton Street Station took take place on 7th and 8th September featuring a static display of our Saddletank loco 752 currently liveried as 51456 – for this event it was to be liveried as L&Y 752 – , the L&Y ‘Radial Tank’ 1008 on loan from the (National) Railway Museum and the bogie L&Y Directors Saloon recently acquired by the railway. Our Pug loco 19 currently liveried as 11243 was busy with shunting demonstrations in front of the museum. NOTE – 752 is now reliveried as LMS 11456 in advance of its road trip to the Severn Valley Railway on 9th September
To view the East Lancashire Railway web page giving full details click here
More details of the Heritage Open days in England can be found here

Legends of Steam – Friday March 15th to Sunday 17th March, our Saddletank 752 featured in all 3 days liveried as Horwich Works service loco 11305 as we have reported elsewhere on this website, running shuttle services each day.

Images of 752 in use can be found on our page Photos – stock in use
and videos from Youtube on our page Video Online

There may be other public events during 2024 featuring our locos of which details will be published on this web page.

Expected use of our stock on Worth Valley in 2024

NOTE – the Worth Valley will be using the Oxenhope station and Exhibition Shed area for special events from early October to the end of 2024, so we expect that our carriages and possibly Pug 51218 will not be on public display during this period, also our sales stand is unlikely to be open.

Autumn Steam Up and Fenchurch Special – new event
From Friday 4^th to Sunday 6^th October there is to be a revival of an Autumn Steam Gala, this time with a twist – on Friday evening there was a special operating with ‘Terrier’ loco FENCHURCH visiting from the Bluebell Railway, this will include two Mark 1 carriages and our Third Class six-wheel 1507,

Full details of the 3-day event can be found here –https://kwvr.co.uk/events/autumn-steam-up/
L&Y Ironclad 52044 is one of the locos that may feature in the main event services but currently there are no plans to use our carriages other than for the Fenchurch Special on Friday evening.

Images of our carriage in use can be found on our page Photos – stock in use and videos from Youtube on our page Video Online

VINTAGE TRAINS – there was a dedicated web page on the Worth Valley website which can be found via this link (opens in new window)

The trains ran for full weekends in July and August 2024 –
20th & 21st July, 27th & 28th July, 3rd & 4th August, 10th & 11th August, 17th & 18th August and our carriage operation was without trouble, although there was some impact from other operational reasons including a lineside fire which temporarily stopped all services on one day.

For operational reasons our First Class 6-wheel 279 was not be used on the services, although our Third Class 6-wheel 1507 was be in use with its three replacement doors and one repaired door fully completed.


THE STEAM GALA – Thursday March 21st to Sunday March 24th 2024, 2 of our carriages, Club Carriage 47 and Bogie Brake Third 1507 were in service train use for the 4 days on one of the main carriage sets.

Images of our carriages in use can be found on our page Photos – stock in use
and videos from Youtube on our page Video Online

752 visit to Severn Valley Railway September 2024

Our Saddletank 752 is to visit the Severn Valley Railway to run in their Autumn Steam Gala from Thursday 19th to Sunday 22nd September 2024.

NEW – 752 will be in LMS livery as 11456, possibly the first time for over 80 years, although it did have a faded 11456 on the cab sidesheets under the Coal Board green paint in the mid-1960s – see image below from John Sagar taken during trial runs on 5th September in preparation for Heritage Open Days.

752 arrived at Kidderminster on 11th September, there is a Youtube video of this from Rail125 of 16 minutes – to view click here (opens in new window)

There was an unfortunate failure of a cylinder gland cover near the end of teh first day of the Gala but repairs were completed in time at Bridgnorth workshop in time for 11456 to operate its scheduled service late on the second day.

Images of 752 as 11456 in use can be found on our page Photos – stock in use
and videos from Youtube on our page Video Online

Their website included an announcement (click here) which states that the visit was to be as 51456 and subject to confirmation of the agreement following examination at the East Lancashire Railway – that was successful in mid-August.
In early September it was planned that 752 as 11456 would operate shuttle passenger services throughout the Gala from either Bridgnorth or Kidderminster as far as Highley on the 16-mile long line. The official web page for the Gala can be found here

This page will be updated as the arrangement develops.

New L&Y arrivals at East Lancashire Railway

On 1st July 2024 the L&YR Radial Tank 1008 from the National Collection arrived from York under a loan agreement with the National Railway Museum. It is on public display in the Bury Transport Museum in Castlecroft yard.
It was moved by rail through York Station on the national network for loading to a road vehicle, there is a Youtube video of it being hauled through York Staion, to view click here (opens in new window)

Above shows unloading from road lorry at Castlecroft, below entering the Museum (photots copyright of John Sagar)

Another L&Y item has also arrived at Bury from the estate of the late Harvey Scowcroft, this , the chimney from Saddletank 11305 has been found to be in excellent condition. It is not clear to what use it will be put (if any) as all the existing preserved L&Y locos using the same chimney were fitted with new replacements as part of a bulk order a few years ago.
Since the arrival of 1008 it has been observed that the existing chimney is in poor condition so Harvey’s chimney may be used as a replacement.