South Devon Railway 40th Anniversary Gala April 5th 2009

The South Devon Railway celebrated 40 years of running steam trains on the 7 mile route from Totnes to Buckfastleigh through the beautiful Dart Valley on the 5th April 2009. Origionaly it ran all the way to Ashburton but this section was lost under the new A38 bypass at the end of Buckfastleigh on 2nd October 1971, fortunatley the old timber over roof is still in use as a garage. For this historic event a nine day event four guest locomotives were brought in from other railways. these were
GWR small prairie 5542 from the Gloucsteshire Warackshire Railway
GWR small prairie 5552 from the Bodmin And Wenford railway
GWR pannier tank 6435 from the Bodmin and Wenford
GWR taffy tank 6695 from the Swanage railway
6435 was renumbered as 6412 for the day as the real pannier is currently awaiting an overhaul. 6435 was also one of the origional locos at buckfastleigh in 1969 before transfer to the Paignton & Dartmouth Railway in 1991 with an eventual sale to the BWR in 2008. It was a most memorable gala put on by the SDR, so heres to the next 40 years.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• SDR
• south
• devon
• railway
• gwr
• buckfastleigh
• totnes
• ashburton
• staverton
• 6435
• 40
• years
• 6695
• 5552
• 5542

[ogauger]

excellent vids mate!5*

[class37fan]

cheers m8

[class37fan]

thanks

[jaannetts16]

5* footagwe