Steam locomotive Bahamas returns to the rails in Yorkshire for the first time since 1997

A steam engine that has been a museum piece for over 20 years has returned to the rails at the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.
Bahamas at HaworthBahamas at Haworth
Bahamas at Haworth

The locomotive 5596 Bahamas, a Jubilee Class engine built in 1934 for the London Midland and Scottish Railway, hasn't been 'railworthy' since 1997, when her safety ticket expired. She has been on display at the National Railway Museum in York and at the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway's museums in Ingrow and Oxenhope since then. Now the locomotive is preparing to hit the rails once again. Bahamas was withdrawn from service by British Rail in 1966, and was nearly sold to a scrap merchant in Hull before a group of enthusiasts scraped enough money together to buy her for preservation. She was restored and repainted in her original LMS livery at the Hunslet Engine Works in Leeds before being moved to a railway museum in Derbyshire. Bahamas did haul some special excursion trains in the 1970s and 80s, and in 1990 its owners relocated her to the KWVR's Ingrow West station. Her mainline permit expired in 1994, and she carried on running on heritage lines until 1997, when she went into storage. In 2011, an appeal was launched to restore her again to meet modern safety standards, with work on the overhaul beginning in 2013. She will resume mainline operations this month.