Day Trip  :- 31st May 1960 .Leicester (London Road) to Brighton.

Going down the Midland Main line as far as Cricklewood ,then proceed via the West London Line passing Neasden/Willesden Jct /Old Oak Common /Acton /Gunnesbury/Chiswick/Barnes Bridge/Putney/Clapham Jct /Wandsworth Common/Balham & Upper Tooting/Streatham Common/Norbury/Thornton Heath/Selhurst /Croydon East ,then on to Brighton.

 The locomotive was number 73068 .British Railways standard class 5 ,4-6-0 

from 82E Bristol (Barrow Road),the old Midland shed of 22A.

 This locomotive had just come out Derby Loco works after a major overhaul, that weekend and was running in by 15C Leicester (Midland) before return to Derby for onwards to Bristol. This was of interest because this loco was painted in "Swindon" green and lined out as all Great Western Loco's ,not like the rest of the class in just boring Black ..

  It was just a gentle steady run up the Midland Mainline to Cricklewood to change the crew. Further jog along @ 40/50 mph to a very hot south coast city of Brighton.

   A quick vist to the loco shed 75A Brighton where there was 62 engines .Then a trip back to 75E Three Bridges (Horsham) another 24 loco's .A return back to Brighton to wander round the beach until time to catch our train @ 07.30p.m.

  This is where the drama would unfold .We was on the platform, talking to the driver & Fireman  from 14A Cricklewood , a freight crew knew  the way round the West London line to Clapham.

 With this the signalman shout that he had pulled us off and get away smart'ish 

because there was a express nonstop electric @ 7.40p.m following to London(Victoria ). This was the third express whisking  the bather's back to the Capital in 30minutes and control had it wrong by putting a steam special in between non-stopper's.

    We were very slow to get going as it was total ,not expected that we would be sandwiched between these electric's.

   It’s a bit of a climb away from the South Coast and as we passed every signalbox ,you could hear bells ring to say the following train was very close behind.The signalman where also shouting our guy's to speed up.

  So the Redhill pilotman opened her up on this  two line section with a result that we went through Haywards Heath on the through line @ 90mph covering the 40.5 miles to Croyden (East) in less than 38minutes were she was put into the end platform to take water and do a bit of a service on the loco as was now not performing correctly.

At Clapham Junction we dropped our pilotman off and proceeded very slowly home on the mainline.

  I understand that on Monday morning @ the shed .All hell was let loose because of thrashing a running engine @ 90mph just ruined the overhaul and it had to go back to the works for adjustments quote for a week before being out shopped again for its return to the west country.   

 But we had the benefit of doing 90mph on a standard five .Was just magic ???