Sunday 11th July 2021

 

Celebrating 30 Years Since the Opening of the North Tyneside Steam Railway, featuring NELPG (North Eastern Locomotive Preservation Group) NER P3 / LNER J27 65894 (usual based at the North Yorkshire Moors Railway), Austerity 0-6-0ST No. 49 from Tanfield Railway and home based Bagnall 0-6-0ST 401 in Steel Company of Wales livery.

 

The two visitors, both have historic links to the line, with the Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns Austerity spending most of its working life at Backworth Colliery, including operating on the route which the Stephenson Steam Railway now operates on, when making the journeys down to the stithies at Whitehill Point. The J27s link to the line is that Percy Main sheds (52E), which was located close the the Percy Main terminus of the line, was almost exclusively filled with J27s. The loco recreated the last loco to leave Percy Main during the event, carrying a Union Jack on its smokebox door as the last loco to leave the MPD carried.