The 1014 GWR County Project has issued its latest update on progress to create a County Class locomotive, in late British Railways condition, as authentically as possible.

Although the County project is under the overall control of the Great Western Railway Society (GWS), a specific GWR County Project team was established to recreate the locomotive.

Counties were the last GWR 2-cylinder 4-6-0 steam locomotives. Their development resulted in a simple to maintain, powerful locomotive, capable of replacing the 4-cylinder Castle class. Sadly, no County Class locomotives were preserved.

This project aims to recreate 1014 County of Glamorgan using components from a Modified Hall and a Stanier 8F recovered from Woodham’s Barry scrapyard.

To achieve its goal, the GWS was granted ownership of major components from two donor locomotives that form the basis for the reconstruction:

• Underframes from Modified Hall class locomotive No. 7927 Willington Hall.
• the boiler from Stanier 8F locomotive No. 48518

It divided the project into four main phases. Although certain aspects were given priority at different times, work on all four are continuing concurrently. The four phases are:

1. Modification of the Modified Hall’s frames, bogie, and brake equipment and manufacture of three sets of 6′ 3″ driving wheels to create a rolling chassis.
2. Rebuild the 8F boiler as a Swindon Standard 15 OA (three-row superheater) boiler, add the smokebox and double chimney.
3. Refurbish and/or acquire the motion and manufacture of fittings and pipework.
4. Construct a new, all-welded, flat-sided, Hawksworth tender.

This latest report is on the progress with the tender. Parts for the tender were produced in kit form by Goodmans of Nottingham last autumn. Since then, good progress has been made with its assembly, sufficient to allow the first application of primer.

A member of the project team fabricating the tender steps. Whilst there is some way to go, the project hopes that it will be complete by early summer, which should coincide with the boiler arriving from HBSS in Liverpool for trial fitting to the frames.

The tender is unique as it was six inches wider than the standard 8ft. version fitted to various Castles, Halls, some Granges, and one Star.