Commonly known as Britannia Class after the first of the class 70000 Britannia all
55 engines were built at Crewe works between 1951-
70004 William Shakespeare, 70009 Alfred the Great and 70014 Iron Duke were allocated to the Southern Region from new to help out the shortage of the Bullied Pacifics due to driving axle problems.
70004,70014 were allocated to Stewarts Lane Depot (70014 joined 70004 after the 1951 Festival of Britain Exhibition ended) and were both on the Golden Arrow run.
70009 was allocated to Nine Elms depot and used on The Bournemouth Belle for around six months. In 1951 or 1952 Britishrail held static exhibition in Eastbourne goods yard of its new Standard Engines 70009 represented the Class 7s.
70009 then transferred to Norwich until1961, in 1963 she then moved to Carlisle Kingmoor, being withdrawn from service 1/1967 and being scraped by J. McWilliam of Shettleston.
The owner/ builder of the model of 70009 was take to the Eastbourne exhibition by his father at the age of 8 years old. In later years when he took up model engineering his ambition was to build and own a Britannia. After building his first engine in 3.5 inch gauge he decided to build his next engine in 5inch gauge the result being Alfred the Great. The model took 15 Years to build and was completed in 2000. It has been on show at the Brighton Exhibition, run on the Guilford and New Romney tracks and can be seen running most running Sundays at our track at Polegate.
BR Standard Class 7
4-
70009 Alfred the Great