No.70000 Britannia out of water!
Britannia at Warminster feeling a little thirsty.
“Britannia” class 4-6-2 No.70000 Britannia hauled the Bath Spa Express on Wednesday 17th of August.
She passed through a couple of minutes late. On the way back she was pretty much bang on time. I went to film her ascending Upton Scudamore bank.
When I returned home, I noticed the coaches sat the station, so I dashed up there quick and to my amazement saw Britannia sat at the end of the Car-park.
The driver had brought her to a stop at Warminster due to the Tender water level being unusually low. The next scheduled water stop was Salisbury, 20 miles onward! Although the locomotive apparently had enough water (Only just) to carry on to Salisbury, the crew, being that there was only just enough water didn’t want to risk it as it’s down hill all the way to Salisbury. Rumour has it, the line drops so much, that the centre of Warminster is level with the top of Salisbury Cathedrals spire!
The Warminster Fire Service were called out having just extinguished a fire in another part of the town! The 600 Gallons that the Fire Engine carried was quickly pumped into the tender, but 600 Gallons doesn’t go very far when the capacity of a “Brits” tender is over 5000 Gallons!
Another 1200 Gallons were pumped into the Tender but still wasn’t enough as the engine, obviously still uses water even when stationary, so the water pumped in was not making a lot of difference! By this point, the Express had been sat in Warminster station for two hours! By which time a Class 59 Diesel-Electric came from Westbury to tow the stricken excursion back to Westbury to free up the down line to Salisbury!
An hour later I saw the train pass back through hauled by Class 59, I presume the steam loco was uncoupled at Westbury and will probably return to Bristol.
Unless the train made some time up, it would have been back at Poole three hours later than scheduled!
