It was even a candidate for the well known Fifteen Guinea Special which ran on 11 August 1968, but on the night before the trip it was failed with a collapsed firebox brick arch and had to be replaced by engine 45110.

5305 was to have been the 743rd and last, but the scrapyard's owner, Albert Draper, decided to save one of the yard's locomotives for posterity, and have it restored to full running order.

Albert Draper was, at the time, the president of Hull Kingston Rovers Rugby League Football Club, and it was his fond wish that No.5305 would one day head a special train from Hull to Wembley, where he hoped the club would be playing in the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final.

5305 was put in the care of the Humberside Locomotive Preservation Group and based at Hull Dairycoates MPD, where it was eventually brought up to full main line standard.

Between 1986 and 1992 5305 spent several summer seasons working over the West Highland Line between Fort William and Mallaig, continuing the class's particular association with Scotland.

The locomotive left Hull Dairycoates in April, 1992 on the closure of that shed, first moving to the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, running there until its ten-year boiler certificate expired in December 1994.

In 1996, the engine left the KWVR, first moving to RAF Binbrook in Lincolnshire, and then to the preserved Great Central Railway at Loughborough in Leicestershire, arriving there on 20 November 1996.

The loco also featured in Season 2 Episode 3 of the Netflix Series 'The Crown', hauling a train that carried Sir Anthony Eden to Sandringham to offer his resignation to the Queen following the Suez crisis.