New Guest Locomotive announced for exciting Winter Steam Gala at the Great Central Railway.

BR Standard 4 Locomotive 75069 will star in the GCR Winter Steam Gala alongside L&Y A Class No. 52322 (photo Joe Connell)

One of the Gala guests, ‘Omaha’ 2253 has developed a mechanical fault before it was due to be transported to the GCR and will no longer be able to visit,  but with thanks to the Severn Valley Railway and ‘The 75069 Fund’ we are delighted to announce that BR Standard 4 75069 is on its way to the GCR to star in the Gala alongside L&Y A Class which is joining us straight from its appearance at Embsay. 52322 appears with kind permission of Andy Booth.

75069 is a BR Standard 4MT 4-6-0 locomotive designed by R.A. Riddles. The Standard 4MT was designed for mixed traffic use on secondary routes where the BR Standard Class 5 and its predecessor, the ‘Black Five’, would be too heavy. 75069 was one of the final batch allocated to the BR Southern Region which were built in 1955 with a larger tender. This gives greater coal and water capacity, but restricting the weight and route restrictions to that of the Standard Class 5.

Malcolm Holmes, general manager said “We are of course disappointed to be changing our plans so close to the date, but we are grateful for wonderful colleagues in the sector who have enabled us to offer another visitor to join what is sure to be a great weekend to start our 2024 season”

The two visitors will be joining six of the home fleet along with guest railcars Derby Lightweight ‘Iris’ and the NER Autocar to provide an intensive timetable of passenger and goods trains over the three day weekend 26th to 28th January 2024.

Passenger timetable details and fares can be found at https://www.gcrailway.co.uk/winter-steam-gala-26th-to-28th-january-2024/