BR Standard Class 9F 2-10-0 No.92214

The tension mounted ahead of the Winter Gala 2014 as first No.92214 was coming and then it wasn’t and at the last minute it was almost trapped by permanent way work on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. But in the end come it did, arriving at Quorn & Woodhouse on 10th January, 2014 after a six hour journey from Pickering. The tender had arrived the day before. Later in the afternoon locomotive and tender were hauled to Loughborough Central where, over the next few days, they were coupled together and all the necessary connections made.

No.92214 was built at Swindon in October, 1959 and after a few weeks at Cardiff Canton it was allocated, in November, to Banbury where it was used to haul the heavy ironstone trains from the Oxfordshire quarries to the steel works in South Wales. No doubt while at Banbury it picked up some of the traffic coming off the Great Central via Culworth Junction. While at Banbury it was also employed on the fast goods services to Old Oak Common.

In November, 1961 No.92214 was transferred to Newport (Ebbw Junction) to haul coal and mineral traffic in the South Wales area. In the summer of 1964 it was allocated to Bath Green Park to help with the holiday excursions over the Somerset & Dorset. It is believed that No.92214 was the last 9F to operate over the line from Bath to Bournemouth. After that it went to Severn Tunnel Junction from where it was withdrawn in August, 1965, less than six years after it was built. In December, 1980 it went to the Peak Railway Society at Buxton to start it life in preservation.

In 2010 No.92214 moved to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway and worked extensively over the summer period. It was then purchased by PV Premier Ltd, a Grosmont based company owned by Stuart Whitter who once was a driver on the GCR. After an extensive winter maintenance programme No.92214 returned to traffic in the summer of 2011. The following winter more extensive repair and maintenance was carried out and the locomotive again returned to traffic for the summer of 2012. A ten year boiler overhaul was completed over 2012/13 and the locomotive passed an insurance test on 29th June, 2013 and gained a full ten year boiler ticket. Because of the amount of passenger work that the locomotive had undertaken she was finished in BR’s mixed traffic livery.

Following the 2014 Winter Steam Gala, 92214 was purchased by a generous benefactor and is now resident at Great Central Railway. The loco was repainted into British Railways Locomotive Green (commonly known as Brunswick Green) carried by many express passenger locomotives and by sister 9F 92220 "Evening Star".

92214 arrived at GCR displaying the name "Cock o’ the North, and has since run as "Central Star", and currently carries the name "Leicester City".