Until last week I had seen Sir William Stanier’s superb 1933 Pacific locomotive Princess Elizabeth only in the form of an OO-gauge Tri-ang model from the 1950s. It was a great pleasure, then, to admire the real thing as she took water at Challow Road on Saturday during the course of a Red Dragon excursion between Solihull and Swansea.
My grateful thanks are due to brothers James and Ian Mason who, realising my view was impaired by a high metal fence, invited me to join them on the back of their low-loader truck from where I took the photograph on the left. I’ll buy them a pint of their favourite real ale if I should come across them in Wantage’s (excellent) Royal Oak pub. In the meantime, let me do them a favour with a plug for their G.M.C. cycle shop at 6b Grove Street, Wantage.
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