GWR 7800 Class No. 7822 'Foxcote Manor'

GWR No. 7822 or Foxcote Manor is a preserved 4-6-0 GWR 7800 Class steam locomotive that was once operated by the Great Western Railway (GWR) and later British Railways.
==Operational History==
No. 7822 "Foxcote Manor" was built in December 1950 at Swindon Works. It is part of a post-war batch of 10 locomotives, which follows on from 20 earlier locomotives of the class that were built in 1938. It was named after a Manor house located in Gloucestershire, England.
No. 7822 spent its entire working life was based over on the former Cambrian Railways. Its first shed allocation was to Oswestry depot and its last to Shrewsbury, with working allocations also to Chester and Machynlleth. It was used to haul both passenger and freight services over former CR lines including the Cambrian Line and the now-closed Ruabon Barmouth Line. It regularly hauled the "Cambrian Coast Express" from Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth, and in 1965 the British Royal Train. 
No. 7822 worked for 15 years on the mainline before being withdrawn from service in 1965. 
== Preservation ==
No. 7822 was towed to the Woodham Brothers Scrapyard in Barry, South Wales in 1965. It languished there until 1974 when it was rescued for preservation by the Foxcote Manor Society which had been formed a couple of years earlier. It was initially taken to Oswestry (site of the Cambrian Railway Society) for restoration work, but was moved in 1985 to the Llangollen Railway, a restored part of the Ruabon Barmouth Line, where it returned to service in 1988.
No. 7822 served as a popular steamer on the Llangollen Railway working until its withdrawal in 1997. After a heavy overhaul it returned to service in 1999. Since its return to work in preservation, the locomotive has since been on loan to other heritage railways such as the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway, Great Central Railway (Nottingham), Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, North Yorkshire Moors Railway, South Devon Railway, and the West Somerset Railway. 
Following a third 10-year overhaul in preservation, No. 7822 returned to service in early 2016, and throughout 2017 was on hire to the Kent & East Sussex Railway, and then to the West Somerset Railway in 2018.
In March 2021 it was announced that an agreement had been reached between the Foxcote Manor Society and the West Somerset Railway which will result in No. 7822 remaining at the West Somerset Railway until its boiler certificate expires in March 2026.
== Trivia ==
* No. 7822 "Foxcote Manor" is one of nine surviving members of the GWR 7800 Class in preservation.
== Gallery ==
File:33992166683 d6cac7aa52 b.jpg
File:Dsc 1835.jpg
File:Bishops Lydeard - 7822 ready to leave for Minehead.jpg
File:Dsc 1952.jpg
Category:Built in 1950
Category:GWR 7800 "Manor" Class
Category:Great Western Railway locomotives
Category:West Somerset Railway
Category:Steam locomotives
Category:Locomotives
Category:Tender locomotives
Category:4-6-0 locomotives
Category:4-6-0 steam locomotives
Category:Six-coupled locomotives
Category:British Rail locomotives
Category:Swindon Works locomotives
Category:Preserved locomotives
Category:Preserved steam locomotives
Category:Standard gauge locomotives
Category:Standard gauge steam locomotives of Great Britain
Category:Locomotives saved from the Woodham Brothers scrapyard
Category:Mixed-traffic locomotives