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Oliver Cromwell 70013 at Speed through Hatfield Peverel.

The 143 ton British Railways Standard Class 7MT 4-6-2 Pacific (better known as the Britannia class) number 70013 'Oliver Cromwell' seen under the wires at speed heading towards Norwich at Hatfield Peverel Station in Essex England on September 20th 2008.

 

This is a tweaked version of a scan of a print very kindly given to me by Dave ( a Chelmsford taximan) who took the photograph using a Nikon D80 and is posted with permission. I think it's a great shot!

 

This is a very special steam locomotive. It is one of only two left out of a batch of 55 locomotives, Oliver Cromwell was built at Crewe Railway Works in May 1951and delivered to Norwich Crown Point Depot soon after to which it regulary ran on this line, the London to Norwich mainline until 1963 just prior to the withdrawal of steam in this area in 1965.

 

It was transferred to Carlisle Kingmoor depot and this actual locomotive ran the last steam passenger train prior to the withdrawal of steam altogether on British Railways on August 11th 1968. The very next day August 12th 1968 she arrived back in Norwich en route for Bressingham Steam Museum at Diss in Norfolk. It is now owned by the National Railway Museum in York.

 

Restoration began to bring 'her' back to steam in 2004 at the Great Central Railway Centre in Loughborough and on August 10th 2008 it ran a mainline railtour for the first time in 40 years.

 

This particular trip is only the second time the 'Oliver Cromwell' will have visited one of it's regular haunts Norwich Station since August 12th 1968 (the first just 11 days beforehand, you can see the video at this same station in my photostream of that trip) and at least 45 years since it ran a passenger train on this line.

 

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Uploaded on April 19, 2009
Taken on September 20, 2008