PLATINUM JUBILEE STEAMS TO SUCCESS
HERITAGE railways big and small and museums throughout Britain celebrated The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in right royal fashion during the June 2-5 bank holiday weekend.
Locomotives carried specially crafted headboards and stations, and their approaches were decked out in bunting as a real party atmosphere got in the swing.
However, the sector’s flagship locomotive for the event had to be Bulleid West Country light pacific No. 34027, which, as previously reported, has been temporarily repainted purple and renumbered 70 at its Severn Valley Railway home with permission of Buckingham Palace to mark The Queen’s seven decades on the throne.
Despite all our misgivings as enthusiasts regarding a purple Bullied, our doubts and cries of ‘it’s not an authentic livery’, let alone ‘how could they!’, the relivery has been a tremendous success as far as the general public is concerned, and has drawn many people to the SVR who would never normally visit a heritage line. The controversial and brave decision to paint it purple has been vindicated hands down financially. In these troubled times, with fuel costs rocketing, the public flocked to the SVR to ride and see the purple locomotive
