Rule Britannia

 

Andy reminded me that initially Britannia was not an easy spot. That was because she worked in East Anglia from her construction in 1951 until 1963. When we were fourteen, this seemed like a million miles away from us on Merseyside. Eventually, however, and with many other members of the class, she moved west and was allocated to Crewe, and so suddenly we saw a lot more of her.

It was a lovely sunny day and the shadow would still be favourably cast when looking west, I surmised, as I arrived at Crewe in very good time after an early start from home. A first glimpse of the blood and custard stock in platform 12 and a visible whiff of steam from the far end meant I could relax. Nothing could go wrong now. I scampered along through the crowds of well-wishers and passengers. Britannia looked resplendent, but there was not just one but two red and white square signs with “must not be moved” attached - very familiar temporary embellishments over the years. The word on the platform was that she had a minor leak that was being attended to and no-body seemed to be in any doubt that she would be fit to run. There was quite a crowd at the preferred viewpoint at the northern end of platform 6, where I had spent countless hours in times past watching Brits, semis and Scots and all the others leaving the station for the north.

It really was a wonderful sight as she pulled out, accompanied by a prolonged whistle and engulfed in steam. It was quite spell-binding - a sight I never tire of witnessing. As she straightened onto the main line and the last carriage followed past the Crewe Heritage Centre, the gentleman next to me in the row of photographers said to me “That’s put a smile on your face, then”, and he was right.

I hung around until after lunch time. It was such a pleasant temperature and though the station was quieter than usual because of truncated WCML services to Rugby and Milton Keynes because of continuing engineering work at Euston, there were the usual rapid fire comings and goings of passenger trains, including 3 Class 67s on Transport for Wales services between Manchester, Holyhead and Cardiff, but no freight through the station, itself, though I a heard a couple taking the subterranean Independent lines that we used to call the “muck hole”. Obviously, it’s not so mucky these days. The East Midlands Class 170 bug cart [they are actually comfortable, nippy, air conditioned and with quite a spacious internal layout] then took me back home at a leisurely pace and all the way to Lowdham.

John brought me up to speed later in the day. Britannia had failed at Oxenholme and had to be replaced with a Class 37, which itself had then failed on the return from Carlisle on the way back to Crewe and had to be rescued by two Class 20s at Tebay. A shame for those whose big day out had been spoiled, but I confidently predict that Britannia will be back to try again before too long. Rule Britannia!