12-07-2025
Historic locomotive's visit to Cumbria was its first in 11 years
TRAIN enthusiasts caught a rare glimpse of an historic locomotive as it passed through the Eden Valley for the first time in more than a decade.
Built in 1963 at Swindon Works, D1015 Western Champion is a former British Rail diesel, with hydraulic transmission.
It had not been seen in Cumbria for 11 years.
However, it graced the Cumbrian tracks earlier this month as it led the Western Mountaineer rail tour train, for fare-paying passengers, from Birmingham New Street to Carlisle; travelling up the challenging Shap incline before returning south via the famous Settle to Carlisle line.
It is a class 52 locomotive. Seventy-four of these were built in total, between 1961 and 1964, to replace the iconic Great Western Railway steam locomotives on express trains which ran from London Paddington to Bristol, Penzance, Birmingham and South Wales.
On January 30, 1965, Western Champion was rostered for the return working of Sir Winston Churchill's funeral train, returning mourners from Handborough station, near Oxford, to Paddington.
Class 52s were deemed non-standard by British Rail in the early 1970s. The first of the class went for scrap in 1973.
But after the Western Champion was withdrawn from traffic in 1976, it was bought by the Diesel Traction Group four years later, securing its preservation.
Seven locomotives, including Western Champion, survive in preservation, another of which is D1023 Western Fusilier, at the National Railway Museum in York.
D1015 is the only Western certified to run on British railways.
