'Rocket' confirmed for Great North Festival of Transport...

‘Rocket’ confirmed for Great North Festival of Transport…

After all of these years, the staff at the Waggonway will now be able to answer one of the most common visitor questions with “Yes, this is Rocket!”…  The locomotive will be visiting Beamish for two weekends operation as part of the GNFoT in April   The National Railway Museum replica, recently reconstructed and incorporating many changes following extensive research of and into the original locomotive.

The engine will operate on the Waggonway over the weekend of the Great North Steam Fair (April 13 and 14) and will uniquely haul our own Waggonway passenger train – Liverpool & Manchester meets Stockton & Darlington!

The following weekend, for the Old King Coal event (April 20 and 21), Rocket will be in steam in the Colliery, working demonstration coal trains around this area and recalling the originals later working life at Brampton.

More will be revealed on the blog as further exhibits are confirmed – this is by far our most ambitious transport event – there are 12 whole days to enjoy and it will be interesting to see if anyone comes for each and every one of them!!!

Below: Matt Ellis kindly supplied this photograph of the freshly repainted replica at the NRM, York.

Rocket Post Repaint - M.Ellis