Oliver steaming back through Suffolk

ICONIC steam locomotive Oliver Cromwell is making another return visit to East Anglia to mark St George's Day on Thursday.

ICONIC steam locomotive Oliver Cromwell is making another return visit to East Anglia to mark St George's Day on Thursday.

It will be heading the Cathedrals' Express which runs from Liverpool Street to Norwich and back in a charter run by charter company Steam Dreams.

Oliver Cromwell will be heading through Ipswich station heading north at about 12.25pm and returning at about 6.30pm. However the train is not scheduled to stop in the station and could pass through several minutes either side of these official timings if it has a clear path.

The Britannia class Pacific locomotive returned to the main line last summer after a five-year restoration at the Great Central Railway in Loughborough and 35 years of retirement at the Bressingham Steam Museum on the Suffolk/Norfolk border.

Two mainline trips between London and Norwich, through Ipswich, last September were a great success for a locomotive which started its British Rail career on the line in 1951.

Next month, on May 16, the locomotive is returning to the region hauling a special train from Norwich to London via Lowestoft and the East Suffolk line through Woodbridge and Saxmundham.

If you get any special pictures of Oliver Cromwell going through Suffolk let us see them. E-mail them to starnews@eveningstar.co.uk