Great Central Railway Loughborough 30th September 2004

GCR/LNER O4 63601 departs Loughborough station on a "Windcutter" minerals train Photo Charter - I worked the morning firing turn on the same charter & after handing over to the relief crew took the opportunity to take some photos myself.

This is a faithful reproduction of the train & the engine that would have passed through my home town, Thorne in South Yorkshire, when I was a child. 63601 was allocated to Frodingham shed in Scunthorpe in the 50s & early 60s and pulled endless coal trains on the GCR line between Doncaster & Scunthorpe

The engine belongs to the National Railway Museum & is on loan to the Great Central Railway, the only survivor in the UK of hundreds built before & during the First World War..