Class 26

Built by British Railways’ Birmingham Carriage and Wagon Works in 1958, this attractive Class 26 Diesel started its life pulling passenger and freight traffic between Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Like others of its class, D5310 would often have been paired with other Class 26 or 24 locomotives to pull heavier passenger services.  It was a mainstay of the Scottish Highland lines until the introduction of the Class 37 to the region in the early 1980s.

After 1985, the Class 26 was expected to remain a workhorse of the freight sector for at least fifteen years. However, the 1990 Recession and the subsequent scaling-back of British steel manufacturing spelled the end for the Class, and D5310, in particular, was removed from traffic when it suffered a serious engine fire in December of 1992. It was acquired for preservation in 1995 and restored by the efforts of the Northampton & Lamport and Great Central Railways, before eventually moving to Llangollen in 2009.

Since then, D5310 has been proven a popular and reliable engine. Despite being over sixty years old, it has one of the highest rates of availability on our railway and handles our services in all weathers very well indeed. Most recently overhauled in 2020 by the Gloucester and Warwickshire Railway, D5310 has also been hired to several other railways for Galas, and visits the Great Central periodically.