In August 1895, 790 Hardwicke took 2 hours and 6 minutes for the 141 miles from Crewe to Carlisle, with an average speed of 67.1 mph and a top speed of over 90mph, setting up a new speed record during the Race to the North. This record remained intact until November 1936 when it was broken by 6201 Princess Elizabeth achieved an average speed of 70.15 mph over a distance of 401.4 miles hauling a train of 8 vehicles. This was part of an 800 mile journey over two days from London Euston to Glasgow and back. This record still stands.
Another member of the Precedent class (955 Charles Dickens) is said to have worked the 8:30 am express from Manchester to London Euston and the 4 pm return for twenty years and in doing so covered more than 2 million miles, a record that has never been broken by any other British steam locomotive. It is also claimed that this locomotive achieved 1 million miles in service in less than a ten year period.
1669 was the last GWR designed locomotive to be built at Swindon when it was completed in May 1956.
The designed load for the class was 60 wagons. A test train comprising of engine no. 2806, a dynamometer car and 54 wagons began trials with the load progressively increased until 100 wagons were hauled. This then became the standard loading for the class.
In February 1906, identical sister locomotive 2808 hauled a record-breaking train from Swindon to Acton. The trainload of 107 loaded coal wagons was made up of 20 twenty ton, 6 twelve ton, 78 ten ton, 2 nine ton and 1 eight ton capacity coal wagons. Assembled at Swindon, the whole train totalled 2012 tons, including the dynamometer car and brake van. This record by a production locomotive stood during the whole steam era, surpassed only by the one-off prototype G.W.R. locomotive The Great Bear which hauled 2375 tons in 1909.
