A4s: The Long Goodbye (short)

The Great Goodbye at Locomotion, the National Railway Museums annexe in Shildon, County Durham, was the last NRM event to bring together all six surviving Gresley A4 Pacific locomotives in a year of celebrations commemorating the 75th anniversary of 4468 Mallard setting the world speed record for steam traction.

Three of the six still run. This film shows 4464 Bittern on her way and getting settled at Shildon. The weather was too awful (for me anyway) to go and film 60009 Union of South Africa arriving with Mallard and 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley managed to evade the attention of the website that was supposed to be following it and got there before I even left the house but there's some footage of the preparations then all three runners on brake-van rides during the event.

Websites
Locomotion: http://www.nrm.org.uk/locomotion
The National Railway Museum: http://www.nrm.org.uk
The Sir Nigel Gresley Locomotive Preservation Trust: http://www.sirnigelgresley.org.uk
The Gresley Society: http://www.gresley.org
The LNER Encyclopedia: http://www.lner.info


Since posting Darlington Council has thought better of closing Darlington Railway Museum. Indeed it is looking forward to extensive renovation as the centre of almost a railway heritage park taking in surviving railway buildings nearby and a new building for the A1 Steam Trust with a welcome rail connection to the Bishop Line.

Work should be completed in time for the 200th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington Railway opening.


Since YouTube has removed the pauses the held the captions on screen. A new version has been posted with extended captions.