There has been a lot of too-ing and fro-ing on this one by our Gala Team however, we can now announce that our Gala visitor for 2025 will be pioneer Class 37, D6700. The loco appears with thanks to its Guardians/Owners – our friends at the Heavy Tractor Group, Great Central Railway (Loughborough) and the National Railway Museum. The loco will be with us for the Gala over the weekend of the 25, 26 and 27 July 2025 before heading straight to The Great Gathering at Derby the following week.
The doyen of the class celebrates its 65th birthday this year having been built, and released into traffic, in 1960 – 4 years before our own 37215 and D6948. However, the three locos share a lot of previous history together. All three were based at Cardiff Canton during the late 1980s and early 1990s and, at one point, were all in the same FPEK Cardiff Canton Petroleum pool. D6700 would later gain a little notoriety when it was used frequently on provincial sector passenger services from Cardiff to Weymouth, Manchester and Liverpool.
With D6700 joining us it gives a rare chance to witness a BR Green liveried, split-headcode Class 37 along with a BR Green liveried, centre-headcode Class 37 for the first time in preservation. It may be likely that they will be paired at some point to give a further experience of a pair of BR Green Class 37s with the different headcode designs – again for the first time in preservation. Could there even be some triple-headed action???? We will have to wait and see what the timetable gives us!!
Tickets and further information (including timetables, when written) can be found here – www.gwsr.com/galas/diesel-gala
