Category:Peckett OX1 0-6-0ST 1859 Sir Gomer

Peckett OX1 class 0-6-0ST Nº1859 Sir Gomer

Built in Bristol by Peckett and Sons Ltd in 1932; Cylinders 16" x 24" ; Wheels 3' 10"; Weight 34½ tons. Makers No.1859

Named after Sir James Gomer Berry (1883-1968) - newspaper proprietor and industrial magnate, born in Merthyr Tydfil. He was director of collieries in South Wales and became chairman of Kemsley Newspapers Ltd in 1937, controlling The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times and other newspapers. He was created a baronet in 1928, raised to the peerage in 1936, and received a viscountcy in 1945.

The loco was originally built for Mountain Ash Colliery of Llewellyn (Nixon) Ltd, passing in ownership to Powell Duffryn Associated Collieries in 1936 and then nationalised as the NCB in 1947. It spent its entire working life at Mountain Ash before retirement in 1981.

Loaned to the Welsh Industrial and Maritime Museum on the Cardiff harbourside. Sir Gomer was restored by the Butetown Historic Railway Society and worked short rides the length of Bute Road station's platform, now Cardiff Bay station. When the society relocated to Barry Island as the Vale of Glamorgan Railway, clearance problems between the track and the loco's coupling rods limited its usefulness. Sir Gomer was replaced at Barry by the Hunslet Austerity Pamela and passed to the Battlefield Line Railway in 2001.