WITH FULL REGULATOR
ONCE again the RailwayTouring Company ran its Great Britain tour this year, the eleventh so far. It was very successful as steam haulage was paramount throughout and fortunately all covered in depth by two of my correspondents, Sandy Smeaton and Alan Rawlings. My own participation was limited to linesiding on the last two days of the epic.
The tour started on Friday, April 19, with No. 60103 Flying Scotsman taking the train from King’s Cross to Scarborough. On day two the A3 continued by running from Scarborough toYork, where No. 35018 British India Line took over right through to Carlisle.Table One shows the detail of the run northbound over the Settle & Carlisle from Hellifield to Appleby.
Ten coaches for 395 tons full is no mean load for any locomotive over the S&C but the newly-restored Merchant Navy Pacific coped easily using about 25% cutoff and Sandy told me that he got the impression that the engine was handled with kid gloves by Mick Rawling. Even so, to sustain speed in the 40s on the 1-in-100 up to the Ribblehead restriction was good going indeed.
At Carlisle both of 10A’s LMS Jubilee 5XP 4-6-0s backed onto the train to take it forward to Edinburgh and what followed as far as Carstairs is shown in Table Two. Despite the two temporary speed restrictions at Floriston and over the Clyde Viaduct at Lamington, it was a highly enjoyable romp with two accomplished locos in the hands of Mick Kelly and Steve Chipperfield. I had nothing like it in the days of steam, my exploits being limited to a northbound run behind a struggling right at the end of its life and a couple of
