GWR 43xx No.4330

GWR 43xx #4330 spent her life working over the Riviera and Welsh lines before being used in WWI, mostly around the ROD departments, facilities and forts, as well as goods to and from the harbours, like Falmouth.

After WWI ended, 4330 went back to the Welsh coal fields, pulling coal trains to and from Maerdy and Mountain Ash Collieries. From there, she ran around to many locations before withdrawl from Chester West Sheds. She was then removed from the sheds to Swindon Dump, the sheds outside the works that held withdrawn and condemned engines and rolling stock. There, she languished from 1937-1949, where she was purchased by a gentleman at Leamington Spa, where he intended to restore her as a heritage engine.

However, the gentleman soon fell into ill health in 1949 and his children began the hunt for another buyer, to keep the loco safe from the scrap yards. The trio of kids spent a few years before, in 1959, the engine was snapped up by the expanding Phoenix Heritage Railway Company to be used at Whessoe Foundry as their goods engine. The engine itself became a leaser, as the new owner of Whessoe Foundry had liked the 4300 class of GWR Mogul.

After a lengthy transfer from Leamington Spa to Darlington, the engine was greeted by 944 tank #945, where she was taken to the shops at the back, where the men gave the 4300 a thorough overhaul and new coat of ROD Khaki livery, as the sand brown livery allowed the engine to stand out in the foundry and the surrounding grounds, which has darker soil and darker ballast.

From the day her overhaul finished, she set to work pulling steel trains and other goods trains over the network and even lent the occasional buffer should a train be in need of help. Aside from her early life and restoration, she stayed in the back of the main fleet, quietly doing her work and drawing no attention from the press or the crowd. To this day, she stands, as a symbol of the industrial work that is a symbol of the very Heritage Railway Company that purchased all those years ago.