Class 26 "Red Devil" 4-8-4 running again

I wasn’t aware of this until late yesterday, due to health issues, but holy cow! 3450 has apparently been restored to operating condition, and has made several test runs.

Enough of the special modifications made by David Wardale survive, almost certainly involving substantial parts of the articulated-spindle multi-ring valve arrangement, to make this even more notable than restoring a class 25 or 25NC would have been.

One of several, perhaps many, videos

Beautiful. Didn’t know it previously, but I can see that it’s near 3.5’ gauge. It will be worth looking for future videos of it lifting some tonnage.

Looks good. Glad that they got it running again.

So that’s the legendary “Red Devil!” Oh so cool!

Here is the Red Devil in 2002 pulling a healthy string of varnish.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=99MADUckaQQ