The Bala Lake Railway has announced that Joffre will be visiting them for their first steam gala of 2019.

Joffre will be visiting thanks to the Apedale Valley Light Railway and visits courtesy of the Moseley Railway Trust and Russell Prince, who made this visit possible.

The Bala Lake Railway will be holding their first steam gala on the 15th and 16th June.

Joffre appears alongside the Bala Lake Railway home fleet of locomotives and will be operating an intensive timetable.

Joffre No. 3014

Joffre No.3014 was built by Kerr Stuart in 1916 and was ordered by the French Commission for their Artillery Railways. It arrived new in Nantes, France to support their World War One efforts.

In October 1930, the locomotive was sold on to Societe Anonyme des Carrieres de la Valee Heureuse et du Haut Banc, Marquise Rinxent in the Pas de Calais area of northern France. This was a stone quarry and had at least four similar types of locomotives. By August 1956, the locos on this site were derelict. It was repatriated to the UK onboard the ferry “Free Enterprise VII” in 1974.

It was moved to the abortive museum project at Pen-yr-Orsedd quarry, North Wales, and then on to the Gloddfa Ganol slate quarry museum complex, near Blaenau Ffestiniog. Here, it was placed on a plinth by the museum operator’s house. Following the closure of the Gloddfa Ganol museum, the loco joined the MRT collection in 1998 and its restoration was completed in 2011.

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