Churchward’s final masterpiece

Churchward’s nine 47XX locomotives were principally intended to haul overnight food trains into 1920s London from the West, South West and Midlands, but quickly found use on freight duties across the Great Western network. Latterly, their reliability, power and route availability saw them hauling holiday passenger services with great success.

4709 – the Night Owl

A fledgling project in 2010, today the Night Owl could be in steam by 2023/4.

See the 47XX history »

4709 blog

As 2020 gets underway, work will commence on casting the cylinder blocks, followed by the meeting of frames and main wheel sets. Our news updates and blog detail the project’s progress.

Read 4709’s Blog »

4709 photo gallery

Click through to see large images of the 47XX locomotives. Except where noted, all these photographs are courtesy of the Great Western Archive at Didcot.

Please be patient, to show them at their optimum quality, the files for these images are quite large and might take a few seconds to load.

Visit the 47XX photo gallery»

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