45149

45149 (D135) is a Class 45/1 diesel-electric locomotive owned by The Cotswold Mainline Diesel Group and a permanent resident on the GWR. It was built at Crewe Locomotive Works in 1961, one of a batch of 127 BR Sulzer 2,500hp Type 4s ordered as a follow-on from the ten pilot scheme 'Peak' locomotives. Released to traffic in December 1961 in lined Brunswick green with split headcode boxes, D135 was allocated to Derby (17A) and quickly settled into mixed traffic duties hauling passenger and freight services across a wide area.

The locomotive's early career was spent helping to displace steam from top-link duties, though the old order occasionally had the last word. On 24th January 1963, D135 arrived at Sheffield two hours late on the 07:55 Swansea–Newcastle with Standard 2MT No. 78009 coupled inside to provide train heat.

Through the 1960s, D135 was a well-travelled machine, working from Cricklewood and later Toton. It ranged widely — one week noted on St Margarets shed in Glasgow having worked up from Saltley, the next heading down the East Coast Main Line on the Sunderland–King's Cross, then hauling empty car flats from Bathgate to Kings Norton. By July 1967 it was among the first ten Class 45s repainted into early BR blue. During a works visit in August 1968, dual brakes were fitted and collision damage to the No. 1 end saw the original split headcode box replaced with a full four-character box, leaving D135 with distinctive mismatched ends.

In January 1975, the locomotive entered Derby Works to become the penultimate Class 45 to receive electric train heating equipment, emerging the following month renumbered as 45149. The conversion — involving the removal of the steam heating boiler and fitting of a Brush alternator — made it a dedicated Midland Main Line passenger locomotive, though it continued to stray onto other routes.

1982 was a particularly busy year. In March, 45149 worked the 15:10 York–King's Cross and return, presumably covering for recently withdrawn Deltics. It hauled the Hertfordshire Railtours 'Wigan Enigma' from St Pancras to Blackpool, and on 16th May made history hauling the last scheduled locomotive-hauled train from Manchester Piccadilly to St Pancras via the Hope Valley. That summer it visited Paddington on a Paignton–Newcastle cross-country turn and even reached Euston via Bedford and Bletchley on a diversion weekend. By August, all this activity had caught up with it and the locomotive was back in Derby Works for a main generator change.

The arrival of HSTs on the Midland Main Line in May 1983 saw the Class 45/1s relegated to secondary work, though new employment followed on Trans-Pennine services between Newcastle, Scarborough, Liverpool and North Wales. A final classified overhaul at Derby in 1985 gave 45149 a new lease of life, emerging in fresh BR blue.

By late 1986, all classified repairs to Class 45s had ceased and the surviving fleet was concentrated at Tinsley depot. It was here, during a B exam in August 1987, that 45149 acquired the unofficial name "Phaeton" — a red painted nameplate with white letters, accompanied by a painted-on '41A' shedplate and the Tinsley Yorkshire Rose. The name came from Greek mythology: Phaeton, son of the sun god Helios, who lost control of his father's chariot with catastrophic results. The name proved somewhat prophetic — 45149 carried it in service for just three weeks.

On 6th September 1987, the locomotive hauled what is believed to be its last BR passenger train, the Sunday 12:15 Derby–St Pancras. Two days later, a defective traction motor on a Dunstable cement working saw it removed to Cricklewood, where it was placed 'on decision' and officially withdrawn on 14th September, the 35th Class 45/1 to be condemned.

The locomotive then effectively disappeared. It sat for years in increasingly insecure storage at the closed Cricklewood depot, suffering vandalism and theft, before being hauled to Leicester in September 1991 pending scrapping. It was purchased by pop producer Pete Waterman in 1992, with ambitious plans for a main line restoration that never materialised. After spells at Crewe Heritage Centre and the Lancastrian Wagon Works at Heysham with little work carried out, it was offered for sale in 1996.

The Cotswold Mainline Diesel Group became the new owners, and 45149 arrived at Toddington in two parts — locomotive and power unit — in April 1997. What followed was a painstaking sixteen-year restoration, piecing the locomotive back together from what was essentially a stripped shell. The Sulzer engine was overhauled on a flat wagon outside the locomotive, with all twelve cylinder heads, pistons and liners removed and rebuilt. Missing components were sourced from fellow enthusiasts and from the No. 2 cab of scrapped classmate 45128. The overhauled power unit was finally lifted back in during August 2008.

The locomotive was restored to its 1979 condition, with 'domino' headcodes in the full box at No. 1 end and the original split box at No. 2 end — making it unique among preserved Class 45s. It made its debut at the GWR in 2013 and has been a regular and reliable performer ever since.