‘Maggie Rose’ joins August’s Greatest Gathering line-up

NEWS

‘PRINCESS ROYAL’ No. 46203 Princess Margaret Rose will leave the West Shed for the first time in 20 years when it appears at The Greatest Gathering on August 1-3.

Last steamed in 1996, the Stanier ‘Pacific’ is the latest steam locomotive confirmed for the event being held at Alstom’s Litchurch Lane works in Derby as part of the wider ‘Railway 200’ festivities. Currently stored pending overhaul at the Princess Royal Class Locomotive Trust’s West Shed headquarters at Butterley, this will be the first time the 1935-built 462 has left Butterley since it appeared at a Crewe Works open day in September 2005, when it lined up alongside fellow surviving Stanier ‘Pacifics’, classmate No. 6201 Princess Elizabeth and ‘Princes Coronations’ Nos. 6233 Duchess of Sutherland and 46229 Duchess of Hamilton.

Princess Margaret Rose – or ‘Maggie Rose’ as it is often affectionately nicknamed – does have a unique link to Derby, having gone to the former Midland Railway works in late 1951 for modifications to its outside cylinders. This was the only time a Stanier ‘Pacific’ ever graced Derby.

Although No. 46203 will be attending The Greatest Gathering, there are still no plans to return ‘Maggie Rose’ to the main line. PRCLT president Brell Ewart MBE DL told Steam Railway: “She is in mechanically good order but in order to meet main line standards of today, and also to have a fairly major boiler repair/overhaul, she would need at least half-a-million pounds – money that we do not have, not to mention the manpower to do the work. As such, there are no plans to steam her.

“I suggest there will be many other former main line locomotives like this from now on as indeed John Cameron has done with Nos. 60009 and 3442 and the SVR have done with their main line fleet as was.”