by Malcolm Baker
During her working years from 1935 to 1962 for the LMS and BR, Princess Margaret Rose ran in excess of 1.5 million miles, predominantly on the West Coast Main Line (see tables I & 2).
She was employed on many named expresses, including The Mid-Day Scat, The Night Scot and The Royal Scot between London Euston and Glasgow Central. She was used extensively on The Irish Mail, Euston to Holyhead, The Merseyside Express, The Red Rose, The Shamrock and The Manxman, Euston to Liverpool Lime Street and the Crewe to Glasgow section of the Birmingham to Glasgow overnight sleeper.
Towards the end of her BR career she was to be seen on many workings north of Glasgow, including Edinburgh to Aberdeen trains which traversed both the Forth and Tay bridges, a route not used to seeing Stanier Pacifics. Her official mileage booked for 1962 differs considerably from her actual mileage, and this will be covered in a future article.
North to Aberdeen, south to London east to Derby and west to Holyhead was the length and breadth of Princess Margaret Rose’s first period of revenue earning service. Her second period, however, the preservation years from 1990 to date, have seen her travel on many routes to places never before visited, compiling a total in excess of 18,000 miles (See tables 3 & 4).
During this period she has travelled extensively on the Settle to Carlisle line and in conjunction with this has visited Nottingham, Sheffield, Blackburn, Bradford, Leeds, Manchester, Stockport and Chester. Princess Margaret Rose also had the distinction of hauling the last InterCity Special Trains Unit excursion from Paddington to Didcot.
She has also run from Carnforth to Workington on the Cumbrian Coast route, Shrewsbury to Bristol on the Welsh Marches via Maindee Junction and the Severn Tunnel and has reached Stratford upon Avon on many occasions as well as retracing one of her BR days routes along the North Wales Coast to Holyhead.
In the course of her main line running, she has visited the following railway preservation centres
She has also spent time at the following BR depots:
She has also called at Saltley and Leeds Holbeck for water.
In addition, PMR has attended BR charity open days at Coalville & Worksop.
Table 1 LMS 1935-47 |
Table 2 BR 1948-62 |
Table 3 Mainline 1990-96 |
Table 4 Preserved 1990-96 |
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| Year | Mileage | Year | Mileage | Year | Mileage | Year | Mileage |
1935 |
48,585 95,467 74,941 74,017 83,612 57,999 40,375 58,887 57,016 51,086 54,674 67,434 45,690 |
1948 |
43,695 44,991 57,921 54,428 59,619 53,119 57,967 51,678 54,457 47,713 56,192 51,431 45,469 6,102 9,000 |
1990 |
938 1,841 1,436 2,215 4,829 3,454 1,122 |
1990 |
145 78 611 403 830 100 76 |
| TOTAL 809,783 | TOTAL 693,782 | TOTAL 5,835 | TOTAL 2,243 | ||||
| Note: 1962 estimated | |||||||
GRAND TOTAL 1,521,643
