You may have heard the term “coffee pot” to describe a steam engine with a verticle boiler, or as a nickname for Bulleid’s Q1 class. However, this locomotive proved to be a coffee shaker…
One of four locomotives that stared in the Watercress Line’s Autumn Spring Steam Gala, this big giant tank engine is a Great Western railway 42xx class 2-8-0T.
4270, owned by Jeremy Hosking is usually based on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway and has featured on this blog before, courtesy of GWSAlex – please check out his blog post that details the history of this steam engine (click here.)
As can be seen from the pictures above and below, 4270 hauled a demonstration goods train. It was especially fitting considering the locomotive was designed to haul freight, albeit coal in South Wales.
So why call it a coffee shaker? Unfortunately this because when we hauled by the locomotive on a short passenger journey from Ropley to Alresford it was rocking and riding roughly. Before setting off from the station I had poured a coffee from my thermos flask which is when the coffee shaking began! Somehow I didn’t spill any!
Despite this, it was great to see this large tank engine, particularly because it is the least modified survivor of its class. Introduced in 1910, the design is over a hundred years old, making this survivor all the more special.
I leave you with a few more pictures of 4270 for you to look through. Thanks for reading folks! 🙂
Loco Yard 
I like the name, so at some point we can have a coffee shaker sitting outside the coffee-pot cafe at Winchcombe, and maybe some time in the future another coffee-pot going the other way (coffee-pot also being the name of the auto-train that ran along our line! Lots of coffee considering the railways are said to run on tea!
Great pictures, not sure if I can speak for the ride, I’m not sure if I’ve even managed to ride behind 4270 yet, if I have, I’ll have just finished working and would have probably been too tired to notice. Maybe it’s just that GWR drivers are better 😛
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The loco was driven and fired by guys from the GWSR 😉
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Blast! I thought there was just a representative who sat on the footplate, having a nice ride…
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Thats on the mainline… On the heritage circut they made to earn there holiday in a foreign land 😉
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If it’s a two cylinder loco, it will tend to “wag the tail of the donkey”, especially if you’re in the front coach.
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Had a run behind 4270 a few weeks ago, heading hanging out of the leading coach window, as in the days of my youth. Don’t remember there being any untoward motion.
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Reblogged this on sed30's Blog and commented:
Mid Hants gala
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