I had a report of a run on the footplate of 70029 Shooting Star from Newport to Cardiff on the 1.55pm PDN-West Wales. It was Bang on time and no effort at all with a 12 coach train. The original Canton allocation of 70025-29 were all kept in excellent condition and once the Canton men had got to grips with how to handle them, they were a great success. Being 2-cylinder instead of the 4-cylinder Castles, they were far better climbers from the base of the Severn Tunnel up to Badminton. Canton men had always liked 2-cylinder engines and preferred Saints to Stars, though Landore were the opposite and had all Stars and no Saints.

Peter Kerslake adds "Looking rather travel weary here at New Street in 1963 this is a sad reminder of "Shooting Star's" earlier days when it had been the last of the five sent to Cardiff Canton from new in November1952 from where they were immediately put to work on the tightly timed Top Link workings between Cardiff and Paddington, outward bound in the mornings and returning home again later that same day with the Canton footplatemen having a higher regard for the class than did the crews at Laira and Old Oak Common.
Competing with Canton's fine "Castles" their five new "Britannias" were invariably turned out for their Top Link duties in a splendid condition by Canton's cleaners, looking their very best and such a contrast to 70029's condition here ten years later.
The later arrival of ten more "Britannias" and seven "Kings" at Canton had the effect of taking the original five from their original workings and displacing them to more secondary duties such as to Shrewsbury and Bristol before they all went to the Midland Region from late 1960 and early 1961, with 70029 heading firstly to Birmingham's Aston Depot in September1961."