Brand new, it was sent on trial to the LMR, working from 20A Leeds Holbeck MPD. 70016 Ariel just a month old with its crew determined to get in the picture and bearing its 20A Leeds Holbeck shedplate, the engine spending just nine months there before being reallocated to Stratford in March of the following year. Its intended destination was, however, the Western Region, and in August1953 it went down to Laira to join its sister engines 70019, 70021 and 70024 which were already at Laira. Not particularly welcome in the far West by the footplate men and shed staff at that Motive Power Depot Laira's three Britannias were rostered to a variety of duties, frequently running to Paddington and Bristol as well as down to Penzance. A regular duty for the class, including the Old Oak ones, was the heavily loaded 12 noon from Penzance, the North Mail which they worked away from Plymouth at 3.45.p.m., running to Bristol Temple Meads and thereafter later that same evening onwards to Paddington on a fresh working.