6024 King Edward 1

6024 departs Chester with the morning test run back to Crewe.
View attachment upload_2026-10-2_21-12-44.jpeg

 

Aside from 6024's physical late BR condition, the livery - as stunning as it may look - has innacuracies all over the place. The shade of green is indeed incorrect (looks more like an early BR shade as used on 5043), the buffer beam number font is incorrect, the tender lettering is too large and is the wrong font anyway (particularly the A and T letters), the ejector assembly and exhaust along the driver's side of the boiler should be black - these were only painted green in BR days, the lubrication pipe cover on the smokebox is all black, when it should match up with the green / lining on the boiler, the list does indeed go on.

Now, I'm not usually too fussed about things like this and I am very happy to see the loco back in action - a true credit to the 6024 team at Williton and those at Crewe that did the final tinkering; she seems in fine form indeed! However, when the only way to see or experience the loco (aside from the rare preserved railway visit) is to pay through the nose for what will always be a diesel-assisted railtour, I do expect better. It smacks of "this is sort of what a GWR loco should look like, our well-off non-enthusiast clientele won't care anyway".

 

Well I guess if "our well-off non-enthusiast clientele" do care they will see bookings take a dive going forward.
It all comes back to who owns it and how they want it to look at the end of the day. An argument that has been debated many times on here, but of course can never be resolved unless you are said owner.

 

Indeed, indeed!

 

Quite correct but no reason why, when a cat looks at a King, he should not comment on what he sees.

 

Ironic that you wrote this just hours after an enthusiast orientated trip with 6024 was announced https://saphostrains.com/journey/the-cumbrian-mountaineer-11-11-2026/
Standard at £99 has already sold out, First (£149) is available. Similar recent trips have all run without a diesel so there is every expectation this one will too.

 

I watched the first departure from Wansford via RailCam: it looked pretty full.

 

No irony at all - we all know this isn't LSL's bread and butter and that this is a way for them to make money for what will essentially be a loaded mainline test run. Come next year and you'll be forking out a lot more than £99 (which wouldn't be considered cheap to most of the enthusiast community I am sure) for a run behind 6024, and a diesel will almost certainly be present.

Anyway, the main point of my post was the inaccuracies of the livery on 6024. That, along with the usual costs, itineraries, and target demographic LSL go after in my view show that they're not fussed what the enthusiast community thinks.