A TRIP from Crewe on a luxury train has been postponed because the organisers can't find a working steam engine to pull it.

Princess Elizabeth, built at the town's railway works in 1933, should have hauled the Northern Belle over the Settle-Carlisle line this Saturday (September 11).

But the famous locomotive, that still holds the record for the fastest steam journey between London and Glasgow, "blew her top" earlier in the summer.

A boiler leak means she needs a major repair before returning to haul heritage trains over the main railway network.

Yorkshire businessman David Pitts, who bought the luxury Northern Belle from the Orient Express group, has had to re-arrange Saturday's trip to October 7.

He said: "Hopefully by then Lizzie, as she is affectionally called [the steam engine], will have been repaired.

"We are very sorry to let passengers down at such short notice but sadly we had no alternative. You must remember that Lizzie, though still a magnificent engine, is 88 years old."

The Northern Belle has featured on Channel 5's "World's Most Scenic Railways" programme earlier this year.

The former London, Scottish and Midland loco Lizzie cost just £11,675 when she was built, numbered 6201 (later 46201 after the railways were nationalised) and named after the then schoolgirl future Queen.

Three years later the engine shattered the non-stop times in both directions between London and Glasgow with an average speed of 68.2mph, earning an OBE for her driver Tom Clark.

The Northern Belle will be back in Crewe twice in November for trips to Edinburgh and Oxford, with a visit to the Christmas fair at Waddesdon Manor, the French chateau-stye home of the wealthy Rothschild family.

Then in December there will be two slap-up Christmas Lunch trips from the town.

For more details, phone 01270 899681 or see the website here.