Description

Perhaps the most special of all freight engines were the Somerset and Dorset Class 7F 2-8-0s, the subject of this DVD.

Their working lives were spent entirely on the famous Somerset and Dorset Railway and such was their charisma, that two examples, Nos. 53808 and 53809, have been saved for posterity.

We see the return of No. 53808 from Woodhams at Barry to Radstock and final restoration work at Minehead. At the S&D Trust’s Washford site; in prussian blue on the West Somerset Railway, including cab sequences.

No. 53809 – based at Butterley, on the Midland Railway Trust’s line. The second preserved 7F is seen at work on the MR and on BR main lines.

No. 53809 Back to Bath – footage from the 40th anniversary weekend of the closure of the Somerset and Dorset line in 2006 at Green Park Station, Bath. This re-created the atmosphere of the 7Fs at this S&D terminus. Rare footage of both 7Fs double heading on the West Somerset line, viewed together for the first time in preservation.

The DVD concludes with the move of 53808 to the Mid-Hants Railway in the Summer 2020.

60 minutes duration