70000 Britannia was the first of 55 Britannia class locomotives built for British Railways. She left the Crewe works in January 1951 and worked out of Stratford in east London on the express services to East Anglia, most notably the Harwich boat train.
She was subsequently housed at Norwich and March depots before transferring to Midland Region in March 1963, working out of Willesden and afterwards Crewe and Newton Heath. She was withdrawn from service in May 1966.
Britannia had an uneventful service record, the highlight of which was that in February 1952 she pulled the royal train from Sandringham to London carrying the body of King George V.
After her withdrawal from BR service, she was placed in storage until she was transferred to Seven Valley Railway and returned to steam. She was later to work on the Nene Valley Railway and was restored to mainline specifications in 1991, spending 6 years hauling mainline charters.
In 1997, she was withdrawn and, following restoration, returned to operational duties in 2011. Brittania had the honour of hauling the royal train for a second time in January 2012, this time with Prince Charles as her passenger.
Further repairs followed in 2018 to cure a vibration problem and it was again withdrawn from service in 2020 when its boiler certificate expired and returned to Crewe for a major overhaul. It returned to mainline service earlier this year.
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