Favourite locos: 5051 'Drysllywn Castle'

I can almost hear the gasps of disbelief coming from the lips of one or two people who know me, seeing that I have picked this particular engine as a 'favourite' in view of some of the very poor performances and more than one embarrassing failure over the years, but bear with me.
I may as well own up at the outset to the fact that I am not a fan of the GWR. I could go on at length but will merely state that in my opinion, improvement in loco design at Swindon virtually ceased in the 1920's and we should all be eternally thankful that Mr. Stanier was able to escaped from the influence! I will now don my tin helmet and flame proof suit.
So, why on earth should I pick a Great Western engine as a favourite? Well, you see, there is one feature that I particularly like and a single chimney Castle is the perfect vehicle (no pun intended) to give a demonstration. Have you guessed what it is yet? Quite correct - it's the noise!
If you need to be convinced listen to this on train recording made on 16th April 1983 near Penpergwym, not far south of Abergavenny on the Welsh Marches route. 5051 has been brought down to walking pace for one of those annoying bridge slacks that affect GW locos on this route. Just beyond the bridge the line begins to rise at 1 in 80 and the Castle begins to accelerate on the climb producing some excellent sound effects in the process. Now do you see what I like about this loco?

Just a week earlier on 9th April 1983 5051 had been on the Shrewsbury to Hereford leg of the Welsh Marches Pullman. We paused at Craven Arms where the Castle performed a run pasts and sounded like this.

Quite often when passing through Leominster many of the drivers on the Welsh Marches route would indulge in a little showmanship opening their locos up and sound the whistle when passing through the station. This happened so regularly that 'doing a Leominster' became a regular feature of a Welsh Marches Express. In this recording 5051 'does a Leominster' at Leominster on the 24th March 1984.!

On 8th September 1984 the Great Western Society ran a train from Paddington to the Severn Valley Railway which carried the name The Castle Jubilee. Steam haulage began at Didcot with 5051 'Drysllwyn Castle' in charge of the 10 coach train. I recall that the loco made an awful lot of noise but didn't achieve very much in the way of performance. Indeed, it wasn't until well beyond Banbury, almost 50 miles from Didcot that we first attained 60 mph. 0 - 60 in 75 minutes must be some kind of record. The main interest from the hill climbing point of view was Hatton Bank. In this recording the Castle is heard being opened up ready for the climb ahead soon after passing through Leamington Spa.