COUNTING THEIR BLESSINGS!
NOVEMBER 13, 2018 was a pretty ordinary day for the majority of the UK population. It was largely overcast everywhere, with Brexit and a jungle-based reality TV show dominating the news headlines. Yet for the Churchward County Trust, it was a day of huge significance – a day that saw the first frame plates for a Great Western Railway County class 4-4-0 cut in 107 years.
Not since 1911 had anyone witnessed the ‘birth’ of one of George Jackson Churchward’s enigmatic 38XXs, and as I stood there watching as the first of the plates was lifted from the plasma cutter, I couldn’t help thinking how lucky I was to be there. After all, few people in this day and age get to see the frames of a brand new standard gauge steam locomotive being cut.
Yet what made the events of November 13 even more significant was they came just nine months after the project to build County of Montgomery was launched in Heritage Railway’s sister title, The Railway Magazine. It was a just reward for those who had pledged their financial support to the fledgling scheme, and justification in their belief that a new County 4-4-0 will run once again on the railways of Great Britain.
Yet while the CCT’s project to build the new 4-4-0 – No. 3840 County of Montgomery – is only just a year old, the concept of filling this gap in the ranks of preserved GWR locomotives goes back over 14 years.
Didcot’s dream
The origins of the County of Montgomery project are directly tied to the Great Western Society’s ‘Three Counties Agreement’ of 2005, which was drawn up with Vale of Glamorgan Council (VoGC) primarily to re-create one of the later Hawksworth County class 4-6-0s, along with a Churchward 4-4-0 and its 4-4-2T derivative.
This scheme was the brainchild of GWS member David Bradshaw and centred on unrestored Hawksworth Modified Hall No. 7927 , which was owned by VoGC and still languishing at Barry. No. 7927 would be donated to the GWS and its frames form the basis of a County 4-6-0 re-creation, together with the modified boiler from another of the famous ‘Barry 10’ wrecks – Stanier ‘8F’ No. 48518.
