Old Oak Common's 6003, "King George IV" is clearly fresh from Swindon Works in this view and could well have worked down from Swindon to Bristol on a "Running In" duty prior to going back home to Old Oak, as was the custom with "Ex Works" engines.
This particular "King" astonishingly spent the whole of its working life from 1927 allocated to Old Oak, just spending a very short time in its last years at Cardiff Canton before withdrawal in 1962 and subsequent disposal at Swindon.
Quite a record !
The decision to reallocate a number of " Kings " to Cardiff Canton in late 1960 was made in an effort to find suitable work for those engines at a time when many of their previous main line duties had been taken over by the influx of Diesels.
What the shedmasters at Cardiff thought of their newly acquired engines, by now in the last years of their working lives but still in fine working order following overhauls at Swindon has not been widely recorded, and several of the Canton "Kings", including 6003, were kept "in store", at Canton,their chimneys sheeted over.
A number did, however, appear on the top link passenger express workings between Cardiff and Paddington, including the tightly timed "Red Dragon", and they also worked the heavily loaded milk trains from West Wales to Kensington.