BR 4-6-0 Castle Class ‘Bristol Castle’
The Royal Family have always had a close relationship with the Great Western Railways, dating back to the time when Queen Victoria took her very first rail journey from Windsor on a Great Western train. At this time it was quite common for the Royals to travel by train and Castle Class locomotive No. 4082 was selected as the Royal locomotive and named accordingly as ‘Windsor Castle’.
On one occasion, in April 1924, it was actually driven by King George V and Queen Mary from the Swindon Works to Swindon Station. Heading the Royal Train also meant that the locomotive had to serve on less joyous occasions and in February 1952 following the death of King George VI, ‘Windsor Castle’ was required to pull the Royal Funeral Train.
Sadly at this time ‘Windsor Castle’ No. 4082 was being repaired at the Worcester Shed, without wanting to break with tradition locomotive ‘Bristol Castle’ ¢ No. 7013 was called into action to cover for its Classmate and the name plates of the two locomotives were swapped. This highly limited run of only 500 pieces is exclusive to the Corgi Collector Club and captures ‘Windsor Castle’ No. 4082 carrying the name and number plate of ‘Bristol Castle’ No. 7013 in BR Green with an early BR emblem.
