Following further repairs to its motion, Britannia Class 7MT No. 70000 Britannia would make a return to her home ground on an interesting route, hauling the Steam Dreams Excursion from Windsor to Norwich.
Starting out at Feltham, the Brit makes light work of the train as it heads towards London, a rare sight to see steam heading in this direction in the morning! The next planned shot was Romford, however things started to go wrong when Britannia appeared to not be moving at Forest Gate. Having caught a train back to investigate we found out why. Something caught in the overhead wires had freed itself from the engines exhaust and landed on the cab roof and needed to be removed, not a simple task when taking into account line blocks and needing to turn off the overhead power. Having removed the offending item, the train headed off again 90 minutes down, pausing briefly at Manor Park to drop off the Network Rail MOM. With a water stop at Colchester we knew we could overtake it, and ended up at Manningtree where Brit flies through.
For the return, we began at Stowmarket. Despite arriving at Norwich over an hour and half late, the train managed to leave only 13 minutes down. Passing the old signal box, Britannia flew through with her whistle blaring like a good ‘un! Returning to Manningtree, a similar performance was caught, this time from the level crossing near the station. With the train still running late we decided to head straight back to London, and to Hackney Wick, where Britannia, now off of home metals, powers up the grade through the station with her whistle and ‘bark’ echoing around the surroundings, ending what was a challenging but certainly rewarding day out, and definitely a highlight to see the Brit back on her old stomping ground of the GEML.
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