Built at Brighton Works in 1946, the  locomotive was named Winston Churchill at a ceremony at Waterloo railway station in September 1947. It was allocated to Salisbury locomotive  shed for services on the West of England Main Line between London and  Exeter and was later re-allocated to the Nine Elms locomotive shed in  London, followed by the Exmouth Junction shed near Exeter before  returning to Salisbury in mid-1951.

The locomotive was used to pull Winston Churchill's funeral train from Waterloo to Hanborough  in January 1965 before being withdrawn later that year on the 19th of  September 1965 to be preserved. It entered into the National Railway  Museum collection and has since been displayed at York and Shildon.