King George V

50 years ago today....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=oTlb8yZPs1g

What was the background to her just being stored at Swindon 1962-68?

 

AFAIK she (he?) was set aside for the National Collection, but storage was an issue, given loading gauge limitations away from ex GW routes even then. (Weren't Kings limited to Kings Cross - York during the 1948 Exchanges?).

 

Weren't some stored at Hellifield?

 

yes and some in Leicester

 

This seems as good a place as any to post this.

I've got some slides of King George V in steam at an event in the 70s, I think at Swindon Works. I don't have the means to scan them, but I figured folk here might be able to provide a more precise idea of when this was…

There's a few pictures mixed up, but there's a couple of 6000 on a turntable, with a Bristolian headboard (which it seems to carry a lot, so might not help), with a Warship and Hymek in the background, which I think were at Swindon at that time.

I've also got some photos of a Western Courier, freshly restored there and might have been 'launched' at an event, or it might be two different events I've merged in my head. I was pretty young at the time so memories are very foggy. The Western photos I've got are almost identical to this https://picclick.co.uk/Postcard-WES...IVE-NO-1062-WESTERN-COURIER-303366206736.html so presumably the same event – I'm wondering if KGV was there at the same time.

Anyone got any ideas?

Simon

 

Must be Swindon Works Open Day - 19 May 1979.
5 Westerns, 2 Warships and a Hymek + KGV with Bristolian headboard.
That’s the only date which matches the locomotive line up you mentioned.

http://www.bropendays.co.uk/swindon1979.html

 

Amazing, thank you!

Simon

 

You’re welcome.

 

I wonder whether KGV's attendance was related to her visit to Swindon for remedial works after this?

https://www.sixbellsjunction.co.uk/70s/790301br.htm

 

October this year will mark the 50 th anniversary of the lifting of the steam ban and the running of KGV on BR.

 

I don’t know if it was because of that trip or if it was a common issue, but in my head ‘hot box’ has always been synonymous with KGV, from going to see it some where like Reading and it not turning up because of the mythical hot box.

Simon

 

I was on the train when the hot box occurred (and was hugely disappointed that we had to have a 47 back to Paddington). Likewise I visited the works at Swindon when she was being repaired and was allowed (under supervision) to drive her off the weighbridge, the only time I have ever taken a regulator....

 

If I'd known you were there I would've waved…

Simon

 

Funnily enough I was thinking the same thing the other day, 6024 did a special to mark the 25th anniversary in 1996.
Have Saphos or Vintage Trains something in the pipeline to commemorate it? With everything else that’s going on in the world I appreciate it might be difficult, it’s worth a thought though.

 

I remember Dad,Me and a couple of friends hurtling around Oxfordshire and Berkshire in a MK2 Jag to photograph KGV back then.

Dad bought tickets for the Kensington Olympia to Swindon leg, but We got delayed and got into Olympia as KGV pulled out, Thankfully Bulmers honoured our tickets and transferred them for the Swindon to Hereford leg. My first steam trip on B.R.

 

A couple of my shots of her from the 1970s:

 

Depends if it’s in ticket when the time comes............. would be nice wouldn’t it

 

....and, more recently, May 2017, back at her (or should that be his) birthplace:

 

Absolutely, fair play to Mr Prior he really set in motion a wonderful WIBN project