THE PERSHORE Plum Express made its annual trip from Broadway to Cheltenham last weekend with Queen Victoria (plum) and her entourage on board.
The Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway (GWSR journey is undertaken every year, ahead of the Pershore Plum Festival which takes place this weekend between now and Sunday, August 25..
Running the train is fitting, given that in the past, the railway over which the present-day volunteer-run GWSR operates, once carried thousands of tons of Vale of Evesham fruit (including plums) and vegetables to markets all over the UK.
It journeyed to its destinations from a special fruit packing and transfer shed at Toddington station.
The Pershore Plum itself was discovered growing wild in 1827 and has been cultivated to provide the varieties we know today, an early purple and a late yellow.
Its importance to Pershore was such that the NFU approached the then Great Western Railway in 1927 to name a locomotive ‘Pershore Plum’ to mark the centenary of the plum’s discovery.
That locomotive, a ‘Bulldog’ class no. 3353 based at Worcester depot, unfortunately ended its days being scrapped in 1947.
The locomotive hauling today’s train was 2807 (it does not have a name like many other steam engines).
Having been built in 1905, it is the oldest former Great Western Railway steam locomotive in working order. It a contemporary of the 1900-built original ‘Pershore Plum’ locomotive.
Last weekend’s event enabled the GWSR to offer a reminder of the past importance of the railways in transporting huge quantities of goods across the UK, including fruit and Vale of Evesham produce.
Items today reach their markets by road transport.
