7029 Clun Castle was built to the Great Western Railway

Great Western Railway

The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...

 Castle Class

GWR 4073 Class

The GWR 4073 Class or Castle class locomotives are a group of 4-6-0 steam locomotives of the Great Western Railway. They were originally designed by the railway's Chief Mechanical Engineer, Charles Collett, for working the company's express passenger trains.-History:A development of the earlier...

 design by the Western Region of British Railways

Western Region of British Railways

The Western Region was a region of British Railways from 1948. The region ceased to be an operating unit in its own right in the 1980s and was wound up at the end of 1992...

 at Swindon Works

Swindon Works

Swindon railway works were built by the Great Western Railway in 1841 in Swindon in the English county of Wiltshire.-History:In 1835 Parliament approved the construction of a railway between London and Bristol. Its Chief Engineer was Isambard Kingdom Brunel.From 1836, Brunel had been buying...

 in May 1950 and was named after Clun Castle

Clun Castle

Clun Castle is a ruined castle in the small town of Clun, Shropshire. Clun Castle was established by the Norman lord Robert de Say after the invasion and went on to become an important Marcher lord castle in the 12th century, with an extensive castle-guard system...

. Its first shed allocation was Newton Abbot. It had a double chimney and a 4 row superheater fitted in October 1959. Its most famous moment came on 9 May 1964 on the Plymouth to Bristol leg of a special train to mark the record set sixty years earlier by "City of Truro"

GWR 3700 Class 3440 City of Truro

Number 3440 City Of Truro is a Great Western Railway 3700 Class 4-4-0 locomotive, designed by George Jackson Churchward and built at the GWR Swindon Works in 1903. . It is one of the contenders for the first steam locomotive to travel in excess of...

 when it was timed at 96 mph on the descent of Wellington Bank in Somerset. Its last shed allocation was Gloucester in May 1965. It hauled the last official steam train out of Paddington

Paddington station

Paddington railway station, also known as London Paddington, is a central London railway terminus and London Underground complex.The site is a historic one, having served as the London terminus of the Great Western Railway and its successors since 1838. Much of the current mainline station dates...

 (to Banbury) on the 11th of June 1965. It was officially withdrawn (and believed to be the last Castle) in December 1965. It was bought by Mr Patrick Whitehouse in 1966 before being passed to 7029 Clun Castle Ltd. In preservation it has always been based at Tyseley shed, now Tyseley Locomotive Works.

In 1967, carrying (non-authentic) Great Western livery it hauled trains to mark closure of the G.W.R. route to Birkenhead, from King's Cross to Newcastle, and over the Settle-Carlisle Railway

Settle-Carlisle Railway

The Settle–Carlisle Line is a long main railway line in northern England. It is also known as the Settle and Carlisle. It is a part of the National Rail network and was constructed in the 1870s...

. In 1972 it joined in the "Return to Steam" tours. After a major overhaul, it emerged in British Railways livery in 1985. In 1986 it hauled the last train from the old Birmingham Moor Street station

Birmingham Moor Street railway station

Birmingham Moor Street railway station is one of three main railway stations in the city centre of Birmingham, England. The Grade II listed old station building has been partially renovated to its 1930s condition at a cost of £11 million....

.

External links

• http://www.greatwestern.org.uk/m_in_cas_castle7.htm
• http://www.vintagetrains.co.uk/tlw_7029.htm