Statfold Barn Railway, Trangkil 50 Event, 13 June 2021

Prince was busy all day working services on the high line.

My plan for June had been to spend a weekend in North Wales visiting the Ffestiniog Railway, my favourite line. Having not booked up early, due to uncertainties around the the lifting of lockdown etc, I was disappointed to discover that accommodation  n the region is at premium this year, with nearly everywhere booked up, remaining places charging prices beyond my budget and campsites still not open to lightweight campers without their own toilets etc. The trip was postponed until later in the year but I still needed my FR 'fix'. Then I remembered reading that the FR's England 0-4-0ST+T Prince was due to visit the Statfold Barn Railway for the Trangkil 50 event on 12/13 June. A ticket was booked and, having told friends in the Wessex Narrow Gauge Modellers (WNGM) of my plans, within minutes a small group had also booked for what would be our first gathering since March last year.

A typical Statfold scene as trains hauled by the Baganall 4-4-0T Isibutu and the visiting Prince pass at Oak Tree Halt. The standard gauge Hunslet 0-6-0st Hastings, newly restored at Statfold, is on the dual gauge tramway line.

The Statfold Barn Railway, near Tamworth, is quite simply a narrow gauge railway wonderland. A huge collection of narrow gauge locomotives and stock, much of it British built, gathered from around the world by Graham Lee and now in the care of the Statfold Narrow Gauge Museum Trust. This weekend's visit was my third. Each time I go some new development has taken place or new acquisition been made. The sale and scope of the collection is bewildering. If you have even the slightest interest in narrow gauge railways then Statfold has to be on your list of places to visit.

A pair of Penhryn Quarry beauties, Cegin and Marchlyn pass Statfold Junction signal box with a train.

I won't bore you with a long description of the day and will let the pictures do the talking.

                 Hudswell Clarke 'Fiji' waits for its next turn.

                                                 Isaac and Howard on shed.

Kerr Stuart Wren 0-4-0ST at work on the Garden Railway.

And the reason the event was called Trangkil 50? This locomotive, Trangkil No 4, the last steam locomotive built for commercial use in Britain, was completed by Hunslet in 1971. Whether or not any of the many other steam locos built since the FR completed the Fairlie 'Earl of Merioneth' in 1979 were also built for 'commercial' use is open to debate of course. The Beyer Garratt K1 is in the background.