Leighton Buzzard celebrates two centuries of passenger railways at gala event
A special gala took place at the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway for a 200th anniversary gala.
The event on September 6 and 7 was part of the national Railway 200 celebration, marking two centuries of passenger ralways.
Almost 600 people filled the trains over the weekend, taking in the full length of the line including the recently opened extension to Munday’s Hill, passing steam-hauled sand and military freight trains along the way.
As well as five Leighton Buzzard Railway home fleet locomotives in steam, there were three visiting engines – ‘Taffy’ from Alan Keef Ltd at Ross on Wye, a replica of a De Winton vertical boiler tank locomotive, complementing its original sister ‘Chaloner’, one of the railway’s home fleet; ‘Diana’, a Kerr Stuart locomotive of 1909, on its farewell tour as it comes to the end of its current boiler ticket; and Hudswell Clarke G class no. 1238 from the Moseley Railway Trust at Apedale, fresh out of the paint shop and resplendent in its new green livery.
A railway spokesperson explained: “The Hudswell Clarke visitor was the same type of loco that was used in the opening years of the Leighton Buzzard Light Railway when it opened in 1919. It was particularly significant to see this locomotive hauling a train of loaded sand skips, a fully authentic replication of what would have been seen on the line over a century ago.”
On Saturday a tongue-in-cheek The Smallest Gathering was held in homage to this year’s Greatest Gathering event in Derby, which took place in August.
The spokesperson added: “Volunteers, visiting crews and passengers alike were overjoyed with the event, calling it “the best gala here for many years”.
“As well as the mainline train services, many other locomotives, steam and diesel, were brought out into public view, including ‘Rishra’, the last surviving locomotive of its type, built by Baguely Cars Ltd in 1921 and used by the Calcutta Corporation for shunting coal wagons at a water pumping station in Barrackpore, India, and Sezela No. 4, an Avonside locomotive of 1915, formerly of the Sezela Sugar Estates in South Africa, both of which attended the 150 years celebrations at Shildon back in 1975.”