BR 70000 Britannia loco thunders through Brixton

BR 70000 Britannia loco thunders through Brixton

Gleaming in the glorious Brixton sunshine is this excursion train headed up by a BR standard class 7 70000 Britannia locomotive.

BR 70000 Britannia loco thunders through Brixton

Britannia was built at Crewe in January, 1951 and was the first British Railways standard locomotive to be built – and the first of 55 locomotives of the Britannia class.

BR 70000 Britannia loco thunders through Brixton

The loco had its roof painted white for many years following to commemorate pulling the funeral train of King George VI from Norfolk to London following his death in February 1952, but today it was back to a very glossy black.

The loco was was withdrawn in May 1966, after just 15 years of service, and ended up in private hands, initially working on the Severn Valley Railway and then the Nene Valley Railway in Peterborough.

BR 70000 Britannia loco thunders through Brixton

With rising costs and an expired mainline boiler certificate, the locomotive was sold to Pete Waterman in 2000 (yes, he of Kylie fame), who spent a small fortune getting the loco back to main line condition.

Today’s run must be one of its first main line outings, seeing as it only completed a test run last month.

[More railway features] – [Wikipedia entry]

5 Comments on “BR 70000 Britannia loco thunders through Brixton”

  1. You may notice that the nameplates, which it used to carry on the smoke deflectors, are missing.
    That’s a shame really because it makes the loco almost anonymous when it deserves more.

  2. @John
    For its first year its been painted to represent its initial testing runs. In operation all Britannia’s were painted in lined green, so with Oliver Cromwell already running like that they thought they’d do something different.

  3. Wonderful to see this engine restored. As a kid I sat on Colchester station and watched this engine or one of its cousins pull the East Anglian Express.

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