Working right next to the Northampton loop line really does have its benefits sometimes. We are lucky enough to get a wide variety of steamers passing by my work, as anything that goes to or from London from the Midlands or the north tends to pass us by on its way there or back. This afternoon saw quite an interesting consist heading southward: a rake of ECS hauled by not one but two locomotives. The combination was also quite unusual as it consisted of a Stanier Black Five and a Gresley A4 Pacific. 45231 "Sherwood Forester" and 4498 "Sir Nigel Gresley" came strolling past in the pouring rain on their way to Southall for some upcoming jobs. The Black Five was leading (no doubt to allow the A4 to use her corridor tender against the train) and both were blowing off as they sauntered past Northampton EMD. "Sir Nigel Gresley" (currently the only operational Gresley A4) looked very smart in a plain wartime black livery...
"Sir Nigel Gresley" was also minus her record holder plates as in her current wartime guise this event hadn't happened yet! 4498 was of course the postwar speed record holder for steam, achieving 112mph in 1959 on Stoke Bank, following in the footsteps of all time record holder 4468 "Mallard". Two record holders from the same class of locomotive must have surely cemented their place in history. As with all main line jobs, the experience was over in seconds and soon all we could see were the tail lights of the Class 47 ticking over on the rear of the train as the duo headed off into the distance. I had to go through my blog archives to find out when I last saw 4498 (then 60007: her BR guise) in steam. It turns out that it was 2009, as proven by this grainy shot from a dimly lit Platform 6 at Nuneaton on a February evening...
It was nice to see an A4 in steam again, particularly as she is likely to be the only operational one for some time since the retirement of "Bittern" and "Union of South Africa". Until the next blog post, take care and cheers all...
Please note that the above images were taken from either none-NR private land or public areas.
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