6212 Duchess of Kent entered traffic on 21 October 1935, allocated to Camden shed and fitted with a riveted 9-ton LMS tender. Oddly, out of all the Princess Royals built at Crewe, 6212 was the only one to be fitted with a Derby style smokebox door, but by 1939 this had been removed.

Spread across three different allocation periods, 6212 Duchess of Kent spent the majority of its service life running out of Crewe North and was finally withdrawn from service while at this shed at the beginning of October 1961.