New Year’s Day 1902 was an auspicious date in the annals of the Great Central Railway for it was then that one Sam Fay took up his appointment as General Manager of the company, a railway whose new and expensive line from the East Midlands southwards towards London was in its early years of operation in competition with other concerns serving the capital courtesy of extensive running powers over more than 40 miles of the Metropolitan Railway’s lines. It built a modest station at Marylebone but was regarded by some writers as the Cinderella of railways, causing one scribe to announce that “Daffy down Dilly has come up to town wearing a brown petticoat and a green gown”. The colours here rather derogatorily referred to the livery of the Great Central’s express engines.
As we know Sam Fay without doubt proved to be the right man for the job and with,a new and efficient team around him, he promoted developed andthe latter company but by 1906 Fay had a second string to his bow when the joint line through High Wycombe was available for passenger as well as goods traffic. Although the line was about four miles longer than the Metropolitan route via Aylesbury the gradients were less severe and allowed Fay to press ahead with fast albeit initially light weight express trains.
