Last Saturday (1 November), Vintage Trains recreated British Rail Western Region’s 1965 ‘Farewell to Steam’ rail tour, from London Paddington to Bristol and Cheltenham – using the same locomotive and the same route!

The original tour ran on Saturday 27 November 1965, hauled by express steam locomotive Clun Castle. Vintage Trains sees the 2025 tour as not a ‘farewell’ to steam, but rather as ‘a celebration of main line steam’s continuous existence’.

Clun Castle has a unique record of hauling final trains. The loco is the last of the Castle class to remain in operation.

In 1964, the locomotive set a new point-to-point record timing between Plymouth and Bristol, reaching a speed of 96 mph during the journey.

When Clun Castle retired from British Rail service, it went straight into preservation, moving to Tyseley to continue special train work.

The loco is still based at Vintage Trains’ Tyseley Locomotive Works, where it is kept in good working order, frequently hauling The Shakespeare Express to Stratford upon Avon and The Cathedrals Express to various cities which are of historic interest.

Clun Castle retains all its original name and number plates, and is painted in BR Western Region livery. On Saturday, the locomotive featured an exact copy of the 1965 headboard. It also had GWR style 7029 numbers repainted on the buffer beam, as it did on the original tour.

Passengers on Saturday’s tour were given a reproduction of the 1965 ticket as a memento.

Vintage Trains Community Benefit Society member Rob Tibbits travelled on both the 1965 and 2025 rail tours.

Vintage Trains is a charitable trust that runs a heritage engineering workshop which delivers services around the country. It also preserves the skills of the steam age and trains young people in manufacturing.

In 2017, Vintage Trains established a Community Benefit Society, through which it set up and now runs its own train operating company. The company operates express steam trains across the country, offering a range of tours on various themes. It also offers private Special trains with tours tailor-made for the customer.