One of Britain's fastest ever steam engines takes hundreds of tourists to Shrewsbury
One of Britain's fastest ever steam locomotives chuffed its way through Shropshire on Wednesday.
Bringing tourists from the south west of England, 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley arrived in Shrewsbury on Wednesday afternoon.
The Welsh Marches Express left Paignton behind a diesel engine shortly before 6am, before the steam engine - an A4 class built by the London and North Eastern Railway to pull expresses between London, the North East and Scotland - was attached in Bristol for the remainder of the trip which took passengers via the Severn Tunnel, Abergavenny, Hereford and Ludlow.
Faulty signalling equipment further south helped delay the train which was 56 minutes late arriving into Shrewsbury.
After a break of nearly two hours in the Shropshire county town for tourists to look around and for the train to be turned and serviced, the Welsh Marches Express left Shrewsbury at 3.50pm to retrace its steps south, due back in Paignton just after 10pm.
Sir Nigel Gresley achieved one of the highest speeds recorded by a steam locomotive in this country when it reached 112mph in Lincolnshire in 1959, setting a post-war record for steam engines in the UK.
Built in 1937 and named after the man who designed it, it is now owned by the Sir Nigel Gresley Locomotive Preservation Trust .
The train was organised by Saphos Trains which runs numerous excursion trains around the country.
