The East Somerset Railway is thrilled to have been nominated for The Steam Railway Award alongside The Dartmouth Steam Railway for the rapid restoration of GWR 'Large Prairie' No. 4110 from Barry condition in just over three years!

The award organisers have highlighted the difficulty in creating a shortlist for this year's award due to the breadth and quality of achievements during the last 12 months across the heritage railway sector so being names as one of the 10 shortlisted is in itself a massive achievement.

This is the only Heritage Railway Award which is decided by the public so The East Somerset Railway is asking the local area for its support!

4110 has had an incredible journey. It was originally built at Swindon in 1936 and was initially allocated to Severn Tunnel Junction to undertake tunnel banking duties. Two months later it was moved to the Wolverhampton district where it stayed for the next 26 years.

In 1962 4110 was deployed at Taunton on the branch line to Minehead which is now the West Somerset Railway. It went briefly to Swindon and then on to Neath in July 1963 where it worked the Vale of Neath line to Pontypool Road until its last day of passenger services in June 1964. It was withdrawn in June 1965 during the conversion from steam to diesel haulage, having run over 730,000 miles in mainline service.

4110 was sold for scrap to Woodham Brothers at Barry and entered he scrapyard in August 1965 where it remained until 1979 when it was purchased for preservation by the Great Western Preservation Group at Southall Railway Centre becoming the 100th locomotive to leave the Barry scrapyard.

In September 2019 the East Somerset Railway completed a deal with the Dartmouth Steam Railway to restore the locomotive. which would then operate on the ESR for the first 3 years before being returned to the DSR. The locomotive moved to ESR at Cranmore in January 2020 and restoration work was planned to start straight away. The boiler was lifted off the frames in February 2020 following the removal of the tanks, cab and bunker.

Unfortunately, soon after this, the Covid pandemic hit and all work in the workshop had to pause. As soon as restrictions were eased, the team had safe procedures in place to enable the restoration to continue. The boiler had a fair amount of new steel platework replaced along with hundreds of stays and rivets. A new set of boiler tubes and flues were installed before the boiler could be refilled with water ready for testing. Whilst this boiler work was going on, brand new tanks and a new bunker were riveted and welded together.

Being a survivor from Barry Scrapyard, the loco no longer had any copper pipes or bronze fittings so everything had to be made new. The frames, wheels, motion and axleboxes were all completely stripped down to their individual parts, cleaned, inspected, repaired or made new as required before reassembly. In August 2022 a fire was lit in the boiler of the locomotive for the first time since June 1965.

The restoration of 4110 has been a labour of love and it was fantastic for all involved when she returned to passenger service in March 2023.

You will be able to see Locomotive 4110 in action at The East Somerset Railway's Steam Gala which will kick off the 2024 season on 16th and 17th March.

To place your vote please follow the link below:

https://www.steamrailway.co.uk/read/hra-awards?fbclid=IwAR2197w9T3d3wwy2C6I4qqDMLJpp6IxNyFMy25P0hfMbgMFNmOAAmD-6Mz4