Steam train 70000 Britannia powers through Herefordshire

Steam locomotive 70000 Britannia will be hauling Saphos Trains’ Welsh Marches Express on its tour to Shrewsbury.

The Welsh Marches Express is travelling from Poole in Dorset to Shrewsbury and 70000 Britannia will be powering the train from Bristol Temple Meads to the Shropshire town.

RELATED NEWS:

• Steam train to pass through Herefordshire next month
• Iconic steam engine passes through Herefordshire
• Steam locomotive passing through Herefordshire

Departing Bristol at 9.13am, the train passed through Severn Tunnel Junction, Pontypool and New Inn and Abergavenny before stopping for water in Hereford at 11.13am.

On leaving Hereford it is steaming through Leominster and Ludlow and Craven Arms at 12.38pm before arriving in Shrewsbury at 1.05pm.

After two hours stopped in Shrewsbury, the train will depart at 3.46pm and will return via the same outbound route passing back through Hereford at 4.52pm, and arriving back in Bristol Temple Meads at 7.13pm where the locomotive will be changed to a diesel to complete the journey back to Poole.

70000 Britannia was built at Crewe, and completed in January 1951.

It was initially based at Stratford to transport East Anglian expresses to Norwich and Great Yarmouth.

The locomotive also pulled the funeral train of King George VI from King's Lynn to London following his death at Sandringham House in February 1952.