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Great memories Phil, I have a further eight A4’s underlined, in my Ian Allan from those days, that I must have seen that day since that was the only time I saw A4’s in service. Not that I can remember them, but you can only see something for the first time once in a lifetime, like Woodcock. Saw Mallard at NRM and Union of South Africa being rebuilt at SVR. That mate of mine called those A4’s “Shrikes” (butcher birds) and I never knew why. Perhaps he had misheard the kids shouting “Streak.” We went from Walsall, I think, to Peterborough on the inaugural diesel service; we were invited, by the driver, to footplate Cock o’ the North, I read somewhere that Gresley had used it as a test bed for the A4’s. Took my two grandsons 2 and 6 to SVR on Wednesday; there was a Stanier 8F, in the Engine House at Highly, with a yellow diagonal stripe across the cab number. This was something else that had bugged me for years, after seeing that stripe on railway videos. Someone told me it was to warn the driver not to go onto electrified sections, I take it this was correct.
Just been reading about a poster who said that school had interfered with his trainspotting. I worked with a girl who said trainspotting had interfered with her schooling. Her classroom was adjacent to a railway line, when a train came by a group of boys would be jumping up and down shouting: “It’s a Brush it’s a Brush.” She didn’t have a clue what they were on about – me neither, unless it was Brush of Loughborough who made electric vehicles. Sorry about rambling on. –hereward.
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