TWO venerable locomotives, the Gordon Highlander (above) and the City of Truro, arrived at Glasgow’s Central Station on September 4, 1959, to mark the opening of the Scottish Industries Exhibition at the Kelvin Hall, which was opened by Princess Margaret. The locomotives had arrived from Montrose, and a cluster of rail enthusiasts crowded around them when they pulled into Central Station.
The Gordon Highlander had been built 39 years earlier at Glasgow’s North British Locomotive Company Hyde Park Works. It is owned by Glasgow Museums but for the last eight years it has been on loan to the Museum of Scottish Railways at Bo'ness. The Scottish Railway Preservation Society, which operates the museum, says the Gordon Highlander was one of a class of eight mixed-traffic locomotives built in 1920. They were designed for general traffic use to the north and west of Aberdeen; this locomotive, number 49, was based for much of her working life at Keith Depot. She was named after the local regiment and nicknamed ‘the Sojer’.
Read more: Herald Diary
The class, fitted with superheated boilers, worked express passenger services for a decade or so from 1920 before being switched to less onerous duties. They often pulled the Royal Train on Deeside to Ballater. Retired by British Railways in 1957, No.49 was ear-marked for preservation and worked steam excursions until 1966 before finding a home in the Glasgow Museum of Transport. In 2011 it arrived in Bo’ness.
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