The operation consisted of four locomotives to which each railway considered their fastest and strongest and four small compact locomotives for shunting and other odd jobs along the journey. The LNER gave an A3 and a J50, The LMS gave a Coronation and Pug. The GWR gave a Castle Class and 1361. The Southern Railway had given a King Arthur class and a K1 class. Plans were set and the operation was ready until the King Arthur class assigned to go on the operation had derailed on a set of points. The Southern Railway made a quick last-minute decision and chose a Q1 for the mission instead. The operation had begun on July 6th 1945. The "Big Four" were tasked with pulling machinery, weapons, and other important goods. the operation went mostly smoothly with no interruptions however the last 2 missions were failures. the second to last involved the goods trains arriving at 7:46, 15 minutes behind schedule, the locomotives were refilling up with coal and water and being put into the sheds for the night. Sirens then started to blare and the opposing forces came and bombed the yard, killing 51 and giving varying injuries to 43. three out of the eight locomotives were destroyed in the bombing, including the Castle Class, the J50, and the A3. Remains of the Castle class and J50 were found but none were found for the A3. What locomotives were left were returned to their railways except for the Q1 and 1361 which were used for the last and final mission. The final mission was to bring the remaining rolling stock to Salt River harbour. The Journey was a success but what happened next is what caused it to be a failure, the crew of the Q1 and some of the yard workers were making final examinations and were planning to head home the next day. The 1361 was arranging some of the fuel tankers that were brought along. some of the crew noticed 2 objects heading straight towards them. What was heading towards them were 3 planes from the German army. They started to gun and bomb the harbour, The yard workers scrambled for some safety in the open wagons attached to the q1 and the q1 was set speeding down the mainline. The 1361 had derailed one of the tankers and was unable to move. The crew abandoned the locomotive and went for safety. The Q1 barely made it past when a plane had been shot down and was heading straight towards the 1361. The tankers exploded and so did the plane. Killing the plane's crew and whoever was near a 50-yard radius of the tankers. The planes continued to attempt to shoot the q1 and the people he was carrying. The q1 went to hide in the tunnel just as a plane dropped a bomb right in front of the tunnel entrance, blocking the locomotive in. The planes left shortly after the tunnel bombing and gave up. about roughly 3 weeks later, a rescue team had came to save the locomotive and its crew and people they had rescued. The reason as to why the last two missions had failed, was because unknown to the people involved with the operation, there was a german spy amongst them that was giving top secret information to the german armies which gave them the advantage. 

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