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48773 was built by the North British Locomotive Co. in Glasgow as Works No 24607 of 1940. The locomotive was part of a War Department order for use in France, for which it was numbered WD 307. France fell to Germany before the locomotive could be exported, so it was loaned back to the LMS and numbered 8233.
Following Russia’s the Soviet Union’s entry into the War, the locomotive was requisitioned and sent to Iran as Iranian State Railways No 41.109. There it worked on the Trans-Iranian Railway, hauling double-headed 700 ton trains of supplies intended for Russia the Soviet Union up steep gradients in the searing desert heat. On 19th August 1942, the locomotive was famously derailed after colliding with a camel, and later in 1944 was converted to oil-burning.
In 1946 the locomotive was sent to the British Army's Middle East Forces (MEF) in Egypt where, numbered WD 70307, it worked in the Suez Canal zone. For a while the locomotive was loaned to Egyptian State Railways, but by 1948 was in need of a new firebox and scheduled to be scrapped.
Fortunately, the locomotive was not scrapped but repatriated to the UK and overhauled at Derby between 1952 and 1954. The locomotive then adopted yet another identity as WD 500 at the Longmoor Military Railway. In 1957 the locomotive was bought by British railways Railways and entered service as No 48773. Although withdrawn twice for scrapping, 48773 survived each time, finally ending BR service based at Rose Grove in July 1968 when it participated in the ‘grand finale of steam’ over the trans-Pennine route via Copy Pit summit. It also worked the LCGB ‘Farewell to Steam’ on 4 August 1968.
==48773 in preservation==
