Our best Annual Steam Gala in recent years

We brought the sights and sounds of steam locomotives to life as thousands of visitors and families descended for our Annual Steam Gala, held from the 24th-27th September.

This year, we had a jam packed timetable with three iconic visiting locomotives including No. 60007 ‘Sir Nigel Gresley’, courtesy of the Sir Nigel Gresley Locomotive Trust Ltd, No. 4079 ‘Pendennis Castle’ courtesy of Didcot Railway Centre, and T3 class steam locomotive No. 563, courtesy of Swanage Railway Trust. The four day event provided an unforgettable celebration of railway history, with more than 5500 passengers attending, making it another hugely successful event for the railway.

Alongside the visiting locomotives, visitors descended to see NYMR’s home fleet including; 9F No. 92134, Black 5 No. 44806, SR Schools No. 926 'Repton', Lambton Tank No. 29 'Peggy', Cockerill No. 8 'Lucie', NER Class P3 No. 2392, and No. 2253 ‘Omaha’.

Nick Simpson, Head of Mechanical Engineering at the NYMR, said: “A lot of hard work went into the preparations for the Annual Steam Gala. An event of this scale takes a huge amount of team work to put together and there is so much that goes on behind the scenes, from getting the engines ready, securing our iconic visiting locomotives. All of which wouldn’t be possible without the help of our visiting engine owners, volunteers and staff. So it is really something to see everyone’s efforts come together over the four days - and hear such great feedback from visitors.”

NYMR has always enjoyed connecting with the local community and beyond about locomotives, so it’s little surprise that when visitors were asked what they enjoyed the most about the event the results centred on the personal experience of being able to travel along the railway in them and being able to see all of the locomotives up close.