A GREAT SURVIVOR
IN four years' time Pendennis Castle (‘Pendennis’) will qualify to receive its centenary birthday card from the ‘Palace’. Like its LNER contemporary Flying Scotsman, ‘Pendennis’ has had an interesting career, a number of different owners, and there is probably a very interesting social history of its life underneath the surface.
We are fortunate ‘Pendennis’ has survived in the original ‘as-built’ condition, especially since five of the first 10 ‘4073’ class locomotives received new front ends in the 1950s (Nos. 4074*/76/78/80*/82*). As an aside, I have often wondered if these locomotives, and others of the same period, in addition to receiving new front ends also received new frames and were really ‘70XX’ 4-6-0s, given old numbers for accountancy purposes! *Carried boilers with a double chimney.
Looking at No. 4079’s engine records, it could be said the loco has lived a sheltered life for some of its time, being based at Hereford and Gloucester for all the war years up to 1953, where daily distance covered may be less than at one of the major sheds, although it did have spells at Old Oak Common, Bristol Bath Road, Wolverhampton Stafford Road and Cardiff Canton.
Apart from the trials with the LNER ‘A3’ Pacifics in 1925, when it was specially chosen to be the Great Western’s choice to play away, No. 4079
