6024 King Edward I

6024 King Edward I is to work 5 rail tours in early 2012 before it is withdrawn for its 10 year major overhaul.

The last trip is a Torbay Express to Kingswear, preceded by a  Bristolian (starting in Shrewsbury), a Cathedrals Express to Cardiff, a ‘Help for Heroes’ trip commemorating the steps of the famous ‘Return to Steam’ trip with 6000 King George V in 1971 that goes from Hereford to Snow Hill and then back to Paddington with ‘Tornado’.  The first of the tours is another Cathedrals Express from Paddington out to Bath and Bristol.  Interestingly, you will be able to buy short tour tickets from Bath to Bristol.   You can find all details here with links to book.

From this it looks as if we wont see the pairing of 6024 with 6023 that many people had hoped for since 6023 is sidelined with all sorts of boiler/firebax related problems that are causing a certain amount of blame allocation at Didcot.

For me, what I would like to see is King George V back where it belongs – on the main line. KGV is THE King as far as I am concerned and I will always remember standing on a bridge at Saltford with my dad when I was very small as it roared underneath, bell clanging. Could we not get the NRM to let us know how expensive an overhaul would be, just to tease us and get the neurones working??