The Epping Ongar Railway has announced that the Great Western Railway Castle class steam locomotive, 4079 Pendennis Castle is to visit for its Steam Gala event between 23 and 25 June.

The locomotive will operate trains on all three days of the gala event, alongside another guest locomotive, British Railways pannier locomotive 9466 and our own 4953 Pitchford Hall, Prairie L150 and Hawthorn Leslie saddle tank, Isabel. Discounted advance tickets are now on sale through the Railway’s website.

The Epping Ongar Railway runs heritage train services through the Essex countryside between North Weald, Epping Forest and Ongar on a stretch of line that was formerly part of the London Underground Central Line.

Pendennis Castle visits its Gala courtesy of the Great Western Society and Didcot Railway Centre, and joins other attractions already announced by the Epping Ongar Railway.

The Castle Class 4-6-0 locomotive is one of the former Great Western Railway’s most celebrated locos, and this weekend is appearing at the Cotswold Festival of Steam.

Pendennis Castle was the seventh locomotive of the type, and was built at Swindon Works nearly a century ago in February 1924. The following year it was lent to the London and North Eastern Railway for trials against the new Gresley pacific locos exemplified by Flying Scotsman. Pendennis Castle outperformed its larger rivals and led to the Great Western Railway declaring the loco the most powerful express passenger locomotive in Britain!

Pendennis Castle was preserved in 1964 and shipped to Australia to work on excursion trains on the Hammersley Iron ore carrying network.

It’s final steaming there took place in 1994, after which it was offered to the Didcot Railway Centre and took a ten-week voyage back to the UK, arriving in July 2000. It returned to steam again in April 2022.

Epping Ongar Railways’ General Manager, George Saville, commented: “We are incredibly proud to be hosting one of the true icons of steam preservation, with Pendennis Castle visiting us, and we would like to thank the Great Western Society for allowing us to make this childhood dream come true”.