THE view from Jonathan Jones-Pratt’s office window has to be one of the most unusual I’ve ever seen. The window sits a couple of storeys up within the Crosville bus depot in Weston-superMare, and from this elevated vantage point you get a grandstand view across the interior of what used to be the base of Westland helicopters.
Over in the distance you can see a selection of Jonathan’s vintage buses, and panning round are more modern members of the Crosville/ Southern National fleet that are the bread and butter of the business.
However, amid this sea of green bus roofs stands, quite incongruously, the unmistakable shape of a Great Western Railway copper capped chimney. Look closer and you see that the chimney is indeed attached to a smoke box, and that smoke box belongs to ‘Castle’ class No. 7027 Thornbury Castle.
Not an everyday sight in a bus garage, that’s for certain.
It was precisely 12 months ago The RM revealed the news that Pete Waterman had sold the former Barry Scrapyard wreck for an undisclosed sum to Jonathan, who at the time had still to turn 33 years of age.
The unrestored ‘Castle’ had spent all of its post-preservation life in store at Tyseley, Crewe and latterly Rowsley (Peak Rail), leaving enthusiasts wondering whether the 1949-built 4-6-0 would ever turn a wheel in anger again.
Suggestions were even put forward on various online mediums that No. 7027’s bottom end could form the basis of a new-build ‘Star’, but these were pure fantasy, and in the meantime the partially dismantled ‘Castle’ just sat and bided its time.
Esta historia es de la edición August 2017 de The Railway Magazine.
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Esta historia es de la edición August 2017 de The Railway Magazine.
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