Great Western Coffee Shop

It^s enough to drive anyone loco, but for the past two decades a team of volunteers have spent 50,000 hours restoring steam engine King Edward II to its former glory.

And tomorrow the restored Great Western Railway express locomotive will go on show to the public for the first time at Didcot Railway Centre.

It was saved from a scrapyard almost 30 ago and has taken a legion of volunteers 20 years to rebuild, at a cost of ^700,000.

The public will be able to see the engine in steam on the centre^s demonstration line, next to Didcot Parkway station, tomorrow.

Centre manager Roger Orchard said: ^It^s going to be a fantastic day for the volunteers, because their dream of bringing a scrap locomotive back to running order has been realised after 20 years of hard work and dedication.

He added: ^Restoring King Edward II has become an obsession for some and in one or two cases has almost caused divorces, because it took over the men^s lives and relationships suffered.^

At 1pm on Saturday, Richard Croucher, the chairman of the Great Western Society, will make a speech, before the train is officially launched by Steve Davis, the director of the National Railway Museum at York.

Mr Orchard added: ^King Edward II will run through some tape down by the turntable. We wouldn^t smash a bottle of champagne on it, because the volunteers would get very upset if we chipped the paintwork. We^re expecting a big crowd at the weekend to see King Edward II running for the first time.^

The locomotive was built in 1930 and withdrawn by British Railways in 1962. The Brunel Trust bought it in 1982 from a scrapyard at Barry, in South Wales.

Didcot Railway Centre took it on as a rusting hulk in 1990, since when it has slowly been restored, piece by piece.

King Edward II is one of the three survivors of the most powerful class of GWR locomotive, along with No 6024 King Edward I, based in Somerset, and the National Railway Museum^s No 6000 King George V.

Restored King Edward II 6023 steam locomotive on show

A Great Western Railway steam engine which was saved from a scrap yard in Wales has gone on show in Oxfordshire.

Volunteers spent more than 20 years restoring the King Edward II 6023, which will be on show in Didcot.

Project leader Dennis Brynley-Howells said the work had been a massive undertaking.

"We've put together nearly 65,000 parts... every profession from a coppersmith to a welder has played their part," he said.

We've done every other Saturday for the last 22 years," he added.

The 6023 locomotive was built in the 1930s at the Great Western Railway's works in Swindon.

It was used on many routes between London Paddington and the West of England before being taken out of service in 1962.

It spent time at a scrap yard in Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan before being moved to a platform close to Bristol's Temple Meads railway station where some restoration work took place.

Then in 1990 it was moved to the Didcot Railway Centre in Oxford where the restoration took place.

It was officially launched at Didcot, which will be its permanent home, on Saturday by Steve Davies MBE, director of the National Railway Museum in York.

The work is believed to have cost ^700,000.

It was a doubly special event with Vintage Trains stopping their double-headed steam tour from Birmingham at Didcot Parkway at 12.10pm in order for passengers to join us in Didcot Railway Centre. Locos were 4965 ^Rood Ashton Hall^ and 5043 ^Earl of Mount Edgcumbe^. Both engines used the facilities at the GWS.