Why Is Britain Building So Many New Steam Engines?

British Railways ran its last main line steam trains in 1968, yet right now Britain has several brand-new steam locomotives under construction at the same time. In December 2025 a new boiler built in Germany rolled into Darlington for Gresley P2 No. 2007 Prince of Wales, and in Sheffield, Shildon, Tyseley and Didcot volunteers and engineers are building the Clan 72010 Hengist, B17 61673 Spirit of Sandringham, a North Eastern Railway G5 tank, LMS Patriot 5551 The Unknown Warrior and GWR County 1014 County of Glamorgan. So why is a country that scrapped thousands of steam engines now building new ones? We answer it using the reasons the trusts themselves give. The Barry scrapyard saved 213 engines but ran dry in 1990, leaving whole classes like the Peppercorn A1, B17, Clan and County extinct. Tornado 60163 proved a charity could build a main line express, earn a main line certificate and hit 100 mph. A funding machine built on the price of a pint a week, Gift Aid, founders clubs, share schemes and sponsored components keeps the money coming, while heritage railways, main line charters and a shrinking pool of boilersmiths make new engines a practical necessity. Corrections built into this video, because they matter: the Clan and Hengist are one project, not two, since 72010 Hengist is the Clan; the new G5 is planned to carry NER number 1759, while 69621 is a preserved Great Eastern N7 at the East Anglian Railway Museum; and Gresley's original P2s were rebuilt into A2/2 Pacifics by Edward Thompson rather than preserved or simply scrapped as P2s. We also cover the honest side of new builds, including rising cost estimates, the Patriot's cracked driving wheels, a dormant Standard project, and the finished proofs that already run, from Lady of Legend and Betton Grange to the Bluebell Railway's Beachy Head. If you enjoy locomotive history and railway engineering explained properly, subscribe to Train Curious for a new deep dive every week.