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Move of British Great Railway Coach

Great Western Railway Coach #6705 Coach number 6705 was built for the Great Western Railway in the late 1930s. The Great Western Railway was a British railway company, linking South West England, the West Country and South Wales with London. It was founded in 1833, kept its identity through early attempts to nationalize its railroads, finally becoming part of British Railways in 1948. In the 1960s General Wansborough-Jones of the British Railways Board had negotiated donation of this car to the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, Missouri. For some reason this donation fell through. Ultimately the car was given to Steamtown USA, a recently created museum of steam located in Bellows Falls, Vermont. Wansborough-Jones retired from the British Railways, and Eric Merrill, Chief Public Relations Officer of British Railways apparently closed the deal. Steamtown USA apparently wanted to show all types of steam apparatus and equipment not just from the United States. British, French, Belgian and Canadian locomotives and rolling stock was included in its collection. Plans were being made for a special train made up of rolling stock from Europe was being planned. Whether this grand excursion would ever have happened was nipped in the bud with Blount¿s death in 1967. While Steamtown USA continued to function without its founder, some of the grand plans never came to fruition. The coach moved to the Scranton, Pennsylvania with the rest of the Steamtown USA collection in the early 1980s. When Steamtown USA folded, and Steamtown National Historic Site was created, with the old Steamtown USA rolling stock as its core collection, the 6705 was the only European piece in the transfer. While the coach was not considered a contributing structure to the mission of the park, it was retained. Plans for limited restoration were made, but never carried out and the car gradually deteriorated in the rail yards of Steamtown. Contacts were made with groups interested in preserving the coach, but none followed up until this recent interest. During the fall of 2006 the park was contacted by Robin White of the West Somerset Steam Railway Trust (WSSRT). The group was interested in the car because much of its interior integrity remained. Photographs documenting existing condition of the coach and other information were exchanged. In December of 2006 the WSSRT approached Steamtown on the possibility of acquiring the car. In January of 2007 the park superintendent agreed to convey the coach, but the WSSRT would have to coordinate and pay for the move. Shipping the 6705 to England proved to be no easy matter. Robin White of the WSSRT discovered the only ship that could transport the car this year is scheduled to depart Halifax, Nova Scotia on March 9th. Ground transport to Halifax had an even a tighter window of operation. The company with the capability of trucking the 6705 only had early February open. With less than a weeks notice, the car was prepared for the international move. Loose pieces secured, windows boarded up and strategy on how to move the coach without damaging it were made in record time. On the morning of February 6th, in temperatures hovering around zero, the car was shuttled to a loading area in an adjacent parking lot. Two heavy lifting industrial cranes were used to gently load the old coach onto two large flatbed trucks, one hauling the body of the coach and the other hauling the wheel sets (commonly known as trucks). Shortly after noon, the convoy of two escort vehicles and the two trucks slowly rumbled out of Scranton heading north to Canada, and ultimately on to England. While the story of the 6705 and its new life in its native country is just beginning, its stay at Steamtown has come to a close. Documents conveying ownership of the car to the WSSRT signed, and the car being physically removed marks an end to this chapter. The move itself shows that great things can be accomplished in cooperation. Park staff working in conjunction with the WSSRT and their contracted movers did a lot of work. Other partners at the state and local level could have easily derailed the move and closed the short window available to move the car this year, but that did not happen. The individuals and groups are too numerous to mention, and if we did, someone would be left out.

U.S. National Park Service

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Steamtown National Historic Site, Code: STEA

Steamtown National Historic Site, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania
Latitude: 41.407600402832, Longitude: -75.6704025268555

Legacy NPS Focus Record ID : 240420

Steamtown National Historic Site Digital Collection

02/06/2007

02/06/2007

Public Can View

Patrick McKnight/Historian/Steamtown National Historic Site

Patrick McKnight

Friday, February 9, 2007 10:05:31 AM

Thursday, August 10, 2017 1:26:17 PM

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EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY, KODAK DX4530 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA

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Tuesday, February 6, 2007 2:43:15 PM

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Historic , Inventory