BR Standard Class 7 70013 Oliver Cromwell

70013 Oliver Cromwell

70013 Oliver Cromwell at Bressingham, May 2004 prior to restoration

Type and origin Power type Steam Build date 30 May 1951

Specifications Gauge 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)

Career Operators British Railways Class Standard Class 7 (Britannia class) Numbers 70013 Official name Oliver Cromwell Locale Great Britain Withdrawn 1968 Current owner National Railway Museum Disposition preserved

70013 Oliver Cromwell is a British Railways Standard Class 7 (also known as the Britannia class) preserved steam locomotive. The locomotive is notable as one of the four steam locomotives which worked the last steam railtour on British Railways (BR) in 1968 before the introduction of a steam ban.

One of 55 of the "Britannia" class, Oliver Cromwell was built at Crewe Works, being completed on 30 May 1951. 70013 was initially allocated to Norwich depot (BR shed code 32A) on the Eastern Region of British Railways and employed on London to Norwich expresses. Some of the Norwich diagrams (the day's operating schedule for a locomotive) required two return trips a day to London totalling 460 miles. The introduction of the Britannia Pacifics revolutionised express services in East Anglia.

From 1958, diesel-electric locomotives began to replace steam locomotives. 70013 remained at Norwich until w/e 16 September 1961 when transferred to March Motive Power Depot (shed code 31B), having covered 698,000 miles in just over ten years, an excellent figure. Norwich Depot, under the shedmaster Bill Harvey, was renowned for the fine mechanical condition of its locomotives. In December 1963, 70013 was transferred to the London Midland Region at Carlisle Kingmoor Depot (shed code 12A) for freight, parcels and occasional passenger work – most regular express services were by now diesel-hauled. The north-west of England became the steam locomotive's last area of operation on BR. On 3 October 1966? 70013 entered Crewe Works and became the last BR-owned steam locomotive to undergo routine heavy overhaul, being out-shopped after a special ceremony in February 1967. 70013 was selected to operate the last steam passenger train prior to the abolition of steam traction on British Railways lines, and in the summer of 1968 Oliver Cromwell hauled several specials, culminating in the Fifteen Guinea Special which ran between Liverpool and Carlisle on 11 August that year and which 70013 hauled on the Manchester to Carlisle leg of the trip.