Saturday evening found me at York railway station for the arrival of a steam locomotive from London on its first main line run for over 20 years.
'Blue Peter' was built to an LNER design at Doncaster works, and was delivered in March 1948, just after the railways had been nationalised. To mark that, it was painted in LNER apple green livery.
It began its working life based at York, but was soon transfered to Scotland where it spent most of its working life. It was withdrawn from service at the end of December 1966. It was purchased by Geoff Drury, and remained in his family until sold in 2014. When first restored it was adopted by the BBC TV childrend programme Blue Peter and so made regular TV appearances.
Most of its first 20 years in preservation were spent at a railway centre on display. In 1987 a full mechanical restoration began. By 1992 it was certified to run on the main line and a series of special trains began. Sadly in 1994 uncontrolled wheelslip at Durham resulted in serious damage to Blue Peter. It was again in need of major restoration work, which took 18 months to complete. It resumed mainline work until 2001 when its mainline certification expired. It worked on a private railway until its boiler certificate expired, and then spent long periods on display at different railway museums and steam centres,
Its latest restoration was completed this year, and it was then tested on the Severn Valley Railway ready for a return to the main line. This run on Saturday was its first on the main line for over 20 years, and there were crowds along much of the route from London to see, film and photograph it. Sadly its arrival in your was into platform 11, which is probably the worst one from a photographers point of view.
It is currently in a rather attractive blue colour scheme, which was British Railways livery for the top main line engines for a short period after nationalisation.
In this shot it was leaving York station towards the Railway Museum. What little steam there was is lost against the grey sky. It returned to its current base at Crewe in heavy rain the following day.
Thank you all for your lovely comments and favs, they are very much appreciated.
Based on the number of social media posts about this run from London Kings Cross to York journey, the return of Blue Peter to the main line has been a very popular event. Hopefully we will see it again in York quite soon, with better weather conditions, so I can get more photos.
Yes, it has only just received the blue colour scheme. It has always been green, an LNER apple green initially and a darker green later on. This is an authentic colour scheme for this type of locomotive, with others in its class painted blue after nationalisation,
Thank you all for your lovely comments and favs, they are very much appreciated.
Based on the number of social media posts about this run from London Kings Cross to York journey, the return of Blue Peter to the main line has been a very popular event. Hopefully we will see it again in York quite soon, with better weather conditions, so I can get more photos.
Ian
Yes, it has only just received the blue colour scheme. It has always been green, an LNER apple green initially and a darker green later on. This is an authentic colour scheme for this type of locomotive, with others in its class painted blue after nationalisation,
Ian