70013 Oliver Cromwell on shed at Loughborough

On shed at Loughborough was 70013

The Great Central Railway has a very busy shed

Always worth a visit, very friendly staff.

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 Railwaysand 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.

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.

Oliver Cromwell became part of the National Railway Museum's National Collection immediately after the end of the Fifteen Guinea Special^[1] (70000 Britannia, later preserved privately, had previously been earmarked for this move). Despite a steam ban after 11 August 1968, 70013 moved under its own steam on 12 August to its old shed at Norwich and then, on 13 August, to Diss whence she was transported by road to Bressingham Steam & Gardens. At Bressingham, 70013 was in service to provide footplate rides until the 1980s, before retiring into the museum exhibition.

In 2004, it was announced that Oliver Cromwell would be restored to main-line standard in preparation for the 40th anniversary of the end of steam, with significant financial assistance from the readers of Steam Railway magazine.^[2] The locomotive was overhauled at the Great Central Railway (GCR) to mainline standards which included the fitting of the train protection warning system, overhaul of 70013's automatic warning system and the fitment of OTMR. On the weekend of 3 May – 4 May 2008, the locomotive hauled its first revenue-earning passenger services since being restored on the GCR's eight-mile route. The locomotive made an appearance at the National Railway Museum's 1968 and All That event celebrating 40 years since the end of steam.