The award-winning Cotswold Festival of Steam has announced its first visiting locomotive over the May bank holiday weekend event.

The Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway (GWSR) revealed that it's hosting the 6800 'Grange' class 4-6-0 no. 6880 Betton Grange from Saturday 25 to Sunday, May 27.

The new 'Grange' class was first steamed at Tyseley Locomotive Works in Birmingham earlier this year.

 

 

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It fits the event’s theme, ‘Western Workhorses’, and is made using components from other scrapped Great Western Railway (GWR) classes.

The 'Grange' fills a gap in the number of surviving GWR-designed two-cylinder locomotives.

The class was introduced in 1936, serving areas named after granges in the GWR network.

80 of the locomotives were built between 1936 and 1939 before World War II halted production.

None of the original batch survived past 1965.

Tom Willson, chairman of the festival organising committee, said: "We are thrilled to welcome this brand-new steam locomotive to the Cotswold Festival of Steam and it’s sure to be a star attraction.

“The Grange class, as a powerful mixed-traffic design, could be found working over most of the Great Western Railway network until the mid-1960s and was a common sight on the Stratford-upon-Avon to Cheltenham line, part of which is now used by the GWSR.

"So this is in a way, a welcome homecoming for the class.”

Paul Appleton, director of the Betton Grange Society, said: “A Grange visiting the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway will be a real highlight for the locomotive.

"It is the fulfilment of a dream long held by many people to see one of the sadly-missed ‘Grange’ class locomotives running once again and, where more fitting than on one of the lines where the class was such a familiar sight in the days of steam?”

As the festival approaches, the team will announce more visiting locomotives that align with the ‘Western Workhorses’ theme.

The guests will join the railway’s own fleet, including the 'Modified Hall' class 4-6-0 no. 7903 Foremarke Hall and ‘Manor’ 4-6-0 no. 7820 Dinmore Manor.

The festival, which last year was recognized as the ‘Best Event in the Cotswolds’, will also open its Carriage & Wagon Department to visitors.