While many were enjoying the snowy Yorkshire scenes of the gala in the Worth Valley on March 11, or preparing for the Heritage Railway Association awards taking place that evening, in the Forest of Dean something that may have otherwise been unnoticed was taking place – the release into service of newly-overhauled WR 5700 class 0-6-0PT No. 9681 and the launch of a fundraising appeal for the overhaul of its immediate numerical successor.
The pannier was released from the line’s Norchard workshops in November 2022 and has since undergone test runs along the 4.5-mile line to run it in ahead of formal launch into traffic, which took place at the Norchard Low Level platform
