Dumbleton Hall moved to Japan
 

Details are scarce but I received an e-newsletter from the Railway Magazine to advertise what is coming in the next issue (Jan 5th) and one item is that GWR 'Hall' No.4920 'Dumbleton Hall' has been sold to Warner Brothers & has been (or soon will be) exported to Japan for display at their 'Harry Potter' theme park.
No.4920 was sold by the Dumbleton Hall Society at the end of last year and it was rumoured to have been bought by David Smith/West Coast Railways (again details were hard to come by).
And I had seen reports that Warner Brothers were looking to buy a GWR 4-6-0, preferably a 'Hall', for display & WCRC had been approached to buy No.5972 'Olton Hall', which was turned down.

Tony

This has been confirmed in both the Railway Magazine and Steam Railway this month:
'Dumbleton Hall' was sold to Warner Bros and moved to Carnforth for the cosmetic restoration as 'Hogwarts Castle'. The loco has now been shipped from Southampton to Japan, along with some BR Mk1 coaches (Railway Magazine says it's two Mk1s, Steam Railway says one & a half!).
The new Warner Bros theme park in Japan is due to open in 2023.

Tony