Trainspotters delight as iconic loco steams through Northamptonshire

Steam buffs are sure to turn out in force to see an iconic locomotive puff through Northamptonshire this weekend.

Union of South Africa will be calling at Kettering at 09;34 on Saturday (March 7) during a nostalgic run from London to York.

It will also pass through Wellingborough and Corby on its way north, crossing the famous 1,275-yard Harringworth Viaduct – Britain's longest masonry viaduct – over the River Welland along the way.

The Sir Nigel Gresley-designed A4 Pacific steam loco, numbered 60009, was built in 1937 and ran London North Eastern services between London and Scotland on the East Coast Main Line. It hauled the final scheduled steam service out of King's Cross in 1964.

The loco – which even has it's own Facebook page with more than 4,000 followers – was named after the then newly formed Union of South Africa back in the 1930s but carried the tag Osprey in the 1980s and 1990s due to political opposition against South Africa's apartheid regime.

It has now been restored to its former glory, painted in British Railways green – and its old name – for rail tours nationwide.

Just six A4's survive, including Mallard which set the current world speed record for a steam train at 126mph in July 1938, and 120,000 flocked to see them all together at an event in 2014.