Top contract for Severn Valley Railway

The Severn Valley Railway has won a top contract to carry out condition checks on a celebrated Victorian steam train when it returns home to the UK.

Experts at the heritage line have been entrusted to look at the mechanical and operational condition of the Dunrobin tank engine and its vintage four-wheel private passenger carriage.

The Kidderminster-based railway today announced it had been chosen to carry out the assessment, with a view to restoring the engine to full working order.

The 115-year-old engine and carriage were originally owned by the Fourth Duke of Sutherland and were used as his personal transport to travel around Scotland from 1895 to 1920. Both the train and coach were bought in 1965 by a Canadian businessman and exported to Fort Steele, British Columbia, Canada, where they were put to work in an open-air museum.

Earlier this year they were sold again to the Beamish Living Museum, at Stanley, County Durham, and are now being transported back to the UK.