Changes

2857 was purchased from [[Barry Scrapyard | Woodham Bros scrapyard]] on 20th 20 May 1974 by [[The 2857 Society|The 2857 Society]] for a cost of £5,250 plus £525 VAT; fund raising for the purchase was helped by a [[:Category:SVR fundraising lotteries|raffle organised by the SVRA Kidderminster branch]] which raised £1,950 nett.<ref>SVR News 33,34</ref> The locomotive was moved by rail from Barry to the Severn Valley Railway in convoy with [[GWR Mogul 7325]], arriving on 13th 13 August 1975<ref>SVR News 37 p.2. and p.14.</ref><ref>SVR Stock Book Ninth Edition</ref> (The 2857 Society website states 20 August).<ref>[http://www.2857.org.uk/2857_2-preservation.html 2857 Society web site 2]</ref> They were respectively the 69th and 70th locomotives to leave Barry.<ref>The Barry Story, Beckett & Hardingham (2010)</ref>

Restoration began at Bewdley in January 1976 and was carried out in the open air. A major setback was the discovery of a cracked cylinder casting. Although attempts at welding this failed, the locomotive was first steamed in preservation on 9th 9 September 1979, minus cladding. A replacement cylinder block was acquired, having been found during the demolition of the Briton Ferry Steelworks in South Wales. The locomotive was steamed intermittently through 1980 but without entering regularly in service. Mileage recorded during the period was as follows:

2857 was steamed again on 18th 18 August 1985 and after a week of running in was able to make her only appearance on the main line hauling a demonstration freight train as part of the GW 150 celebrations of that year (as a heavy freight locomotive, 2857 was not considered suitable for main line passenger rail tours):