WEST Somerset Railway (WSR) will turn the clock back 50 years next month when the same locomotive which hauled the very first train on the newly-opened track between Minehead and Blue Anchor on March 28, 1976, will be back on the rails to mark the line’s golden anniversary.

When the late Lord Montague flagged away the pioneering passenger train on its first round trip, the locomotive at its head was the Bagnall saddle tank ‘Victor’, originally designed for industrial shunting duties.

Now, it will be returning as a star of a weekend of golden jubilee celebrations on March 28 and 29.

The locomotive emerged from Bagnall’s workshops in Stafford in 1951 and is one of two survivors of three engines initially supplied to the Steel Company of Wales’ Port Talbot operations.

Setting a new standard for industrial-use locomotives, they included many design features more usually found on mainline machines.

Working in the steel works shunting yards, they exceeded the performance and reliability expected of them.

Despite this, they were replaced by diesel locomotives in 1957 and quickly found buyers.

One went into National Coal Board use where it lasted for a further 10 years but the other pair found a new home at the Austin Motor Company works in Longbridge, Birmingham.

It was there that they acquired their names, ‘Victor’ and ‘Vulcan’, taken from types of RAF bomber aircraft.

Made redundant again at the start of the 1970s, the pair was purchased by the new West Somerset Railway Company and moved to a yard between Taunton station and the former locomotive shed where they were prepared for WSR service.

Trains began running between Minehead and Williton later in 1976 and Bishops Lydeard became the southern terminus in 1979, with trains making 40-mile round trips.

Although very powerful, Victor and Vulcan had been designed for heavy shunting duties, not prolonged runs on passenger trains over a route with some testing gradients.

In the 1980s they found new owners and lines more suited to them.

Today, one is based on North Tyneside and the other at the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway.

A West Somerset Railway Association (WSRA) spokesperson said: “It was hoped that both Bagnall machines would return to the West Somerset for the 50th anniversary commemorative weekend but Vulcan, now renamed ‘Thomas Burt’, is not available.

“However, Victor will make a return to re-enact a moment in its history thanks to its owners and will take a full part in the golden anniversary celebrations.

“Continuing its support for the WSR, which began five years before the reopening in 1971, the WSRA is sponsoring the costs of Victor’s return.”

WSRA chairman Edward Martin said: “For those too young to have seen and heard Victor heading for Dunster and Blue Anchor, the last weekend in March will be the chance to see, hear, and ride behind the engine.

“For others there will be nostalgia in the air.”

More details of the 50th anniversary weekend can be found on the WSR website.