LNER Route: Leicester to Marylebone

Catesby Tunnel: gcct4a

This close up of image 'gcct4' shows the filthy state the locomotive was in, a not uncommon situation during and after the war. Number 60035 was built in July 1934 and carried the LNER running number 2500. After repairs following the accident in June 1949 it was withdrawn and scrapped in September 1961 at Doncaster Plant where it was originally constructed.

Martin Beckett writes 'I discovered your website via the National Preservation site. The very first picture I looked at really staggered me - I could hardly believe my eyes! It was the close up view of an A3 heading into Catesby Tunnel on the GC main line and the engine is said to be Windsor Lad. Now, talk about 'prize cops' - well, Windsor Lad on the southern part of the GC main line would deserve to be rated as one of the biggest prize cops of all time!

This A3 Pacific was allocated to Scottish area sheds for the whole of its life. It hardly visited the south even on the East Coast main line, let alone the GC section. It might have come south on extremely rare occasions on a running in turn after overhaul at Doncaster, but as your picture shows the engine is certainly nowhere near in ex-works condition - in fact the very opposite.' I lived at the southern end of the Kings Cross main line from the mid 1940s until regular steam workings finished in 1963. Appearances of Scottish A3s in the south were like gold dust, and during my years in the area I had only 2 definite sightings - and one of those was at Peterborough.

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