Britannia

Soon after nationalization of the four principal UK railways in 1948, the newly formed Railway Executive carried out an extensive series of trials between locomotives of all four groups, prior to designing a range of new British Railways 'standard locomotives.'

For a few weeks Great Western ' Kings ' worked between King's Cross and Leeds, ' Royal Scots' headed expresses out of Waterloo, and ' West Country' Pacifics traversed the wilds of the Highland line to Inverness.

The best features of each type were studied, and eventually in 1951 there appeared the first 'standard' design, a 2-cylinder Pacific named ' Britannia.'

After spending the summer on exhibition at the Festival of Britain, No. 70000 was tested on a wide variety of trains in all parts of the country; soon further batches were built until fifty-five were in use.

Designed for working the principal passenger trains on lines where Pacifics had hitherto not been used, the majority of Britannias were allocated to the Western Region and to the former Great Eastern lines out of Liverpool Street; the Western engines were given names previously carried by G.W.R. locomotives long since scrapped, such as ' Flying Dutchman ' and ' Morning Star.'

Our picture shows one of five allocated to Polmadie, near Glasgow, No. 70054 ' Dornoch Firth.'

With their 6 ft. 2 in. driving wheels and 32,000-lb. tractive effort, the Britannias proved fast and economical; they were followed by a lighter variant for use in Scotland, named after Scottish clans, and in 1954 by a 3-cylinder development with poppet valve gear, No. 71000 ' Duke of Gloucester.'

Neither of these was particularly successful, however, and it is the Britannias which best represent the typical B.R. standard design.