Steam locomotive Gertrude leaves the Welsh Highland Heritage Railway

The Welsh Highland Heritage Railway has announced that one of their resident locomotives, Gertrude, has left the railway.

Gertrude arrived at the Welsh Highland Heritage Railway in 2009 and has given the Welsh Highland Heritage Railway a decade of service.

She leaves the Welsh Highland Heritage Railway for the Leighton Buzzard Railway to be reunited with her sister locomotive ‘Doll’.

Gertrude left the WHHR in the afternoon of the 24th February 2019 from Pen Y Mount Junction (WHHR) via Porthmadog (FR & WHR) & Minffordd.

A brief history of Gertrude

Andrew Barclay No.1578 of 1918 Gertrude was one of three identical 0-6-0 tank locomotives built specifically for the Sydenham Ironstone quarry in Oxfordshire.  The others were Winifred (No.1424 of 1915) and Doll (No.1641 of 1919).

A downturn in trade came during the Depression that led to an early demise for the Sydenham Quarry operation in June 1925. Thereafter, the three Barclay sisters of Sydenham were transferred to Bilston where Gertrude and The Doll worked until they were withdrawn in 1959.

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Although Winifred was scrapped, the other two both survived into preservation, Gertrude being based mostly at Studley in Warwickshire and then Exmoor.

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