Tiny 150-year-old locomotive to visit Cotswold Festival of Steam, 23-25 May 2026
4 March 2026: The second visiting locomotive to be announced for the Cotswold Festival of Steam, 23-25 May 2026, on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway (GWSR), is among the oldest steam locomotives in working order – and one of the smallest, weighing just 21 tons.
Fondly known as the ‘Coffee Pot’, or ‘Flat-Top’, thanks to its unusual flat-shaped water tank, it is Great Eastern Railway ‘209’ class 0-4-0ST no. 229. A truly delightful locomotive, it has been meticulously returned to working order for the first time in nearly 70 years by owner Bill Parker and his team at the Flour Mill workshops in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire.
It will join already-announced Southern Railway ‘Battle of Britain’ class Pacific, 34070 Manston, which is in its as-built condition with a flat-topped boiler casing. Hence, these engines were also often called ‘flat-tops’.
The award-winning Cotswold Festival of Steam is the premier event on the GWSR, seeing an intensive train service worked by up to eight steam locomotives, along with a wide range of family attractions, drawing some 4,000 visitors.
“’Coffee Pot’ is the nickname of this quirky little machine, which was built by Neilson & Co in Glasgow in 1876, making it 150 years old this year,” says Tom Willson, chairman of the event organising committee. “It was one of eight built and it’s believed that its very first duties were shunting at Liverpool Street station in London, as well as working the sharply-curved sidings of industrial yards in East London.”
No. 229 is a remarkable survivor. It worked for the Great Eastern Railway until 1917 when it was withdrawn and sold to the Admiralty for use at their Chepstow yard, which became Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd in 1925. It’s believed that the last time no. 229 worked was in the late 1950s, when it was left in a siding, gradually rusting away until the 1980s.
It was acquired by Bill Parker, who cosmetically restored it for display at the former Woolwich Old Station Museum. It remained on display there until the museum closed in 2008.
“Bill Parker then overhauled the little locomotive at his Flour Mill works and it steamed for the first time in preservation in September 2025, when it famously took part in the Stockton & Darlington Railway 200th Anniversary celebrations at Hopetown, Co. Durham,” adds Tom Willson. “It has since appeared only two or three times in public and we’re absolutely delighted that it will star at the Cotswold Festival of Steam.
“It will be pressed into working a short passenger train between Toddington and Winchcombe each day, before shunting wagons in and around the station. I suspect that, despite the glamorous company of locomotives such as visiting ‘Battle of Britain’ Pacific Manston, the little Coffee Pot will steal the show!”
By coincidence, the Coffee Pot Café at Winchcombe station is named after the original steam railmotor services that worked the first trains on the line from 1906. These had a vertical type of boiler that looked a little like a coffee pot, and the name stuck until local train services ended in 1960.
