LOCOMOTIVES – OUR FLEET

61306 Mayflower

Built for the London & North Eastern Railway, 61306 is one of two surviving B1 Class locomotives.

The B1’s were designed as mixed traffic locomotives capable of hauling express passenger trains as well as freight traffic. As powerful, go anywhere engines, the B1’s worked across most of the UK rail network from East Anglia to Scotland.

Mayflower was built in 1948 by the North British Locomotive Company in Glasgow but was delivered post-nationalisation and acquired the number 61306 by British Railways.

45231 Sherwood Forester

Stanier Class no. 45231 Sherwood Forester was built in 1936 for the London, Midland & Scottish Railway.

Since then it has worked all over the country, from routes in Wales and Northern England in its working life, to heritage railways in Southern England to the beautiful Mallaig line in Scotland, where Harry Potter was filmed.

46100 Royal Scot

Royal Scot was built in 1927 for the fastest trains on the London Midland & Scottish Railway.

46100 Royal Scot was the first in a new breed of steam locomotives, built by the LMS for their fastest passenger services from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow.

She was chosen to appear on behalf of Britain at the 1933 ‘Century of Progress’ exhibition in Chicago, USA. The locomotive as well as a full rake of carriages were shipped to the United States and appeared not only at the exhibition, but also toured the USA and Canada, even crossing the Rocky Mountains!

34046 Braunton

34046 Braunton is a ‘Bulleid Light Pacific’ express passenger engine designed by Oliver Bulleid.

The locomotives were so named after towns on or near the Southern Railway system in the west of England, with the town of Braunton situated in North Devon.

70000 Britannia

70000 Britannia was the first of 55 Standard class 7 engines to be built in Crewe by British Railways.

Completed in January 1951 she was built for express passenger services between London and Norwich.

The BR Standard classes were designed by drawing on the best qualities from several previous locomotives to create an efficient engine that was produced with lower maintenance costs and weight saving measures to enable it to work across a wider geography.

A4 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley

Sir Nigel Gresley is an A4 class locomotive built by the London & North Eastern Railway in 1937.

The locomotive is named after the company’s then Chief Mechanical Engineer. In 1935 the LNER introduced the streamlined A4 Class locomotives to improve the speed of their trains and compete with the increased competition from road transport. Initially introduced to haul the new Silver Jubilee express between London and Newcastle, the class was an instant success, with 2509 Silver Link, setting a new British speed record of 112 mph on the first press run! In 1936 this was bettered by Silver Fox, another A4 Class Locomotive, before in 1938 a further member of the class, number 4468 Mallard, set an all-time world speed record for steam traction of 126 mph.