There the same loco at the pontypool and blaenavon the loco I'd 1857

This shot is excellent! Where may I ask did you film it?

It isn't the east coast M.L. IS kings cross to Edinburgh..FACT

What a wonderful story, so nice to see the old lady still on duty. I remember the old stock being replaced on the Reading - Guildford line. Unusually, when the downhill stretch was reached, the old stock rocked like hell and everyone started laughing - bowlers and briefcases included. Not now, we have the posh stuff. Boring - and expensive.

No no no. No reading. Tell us.

Reminds me very much of the small diesel railcars running like busses between Bath and Bristol. Not sure how they compare ?

Astonishing. As a kid I persuaded my mum to take me on this unit from Brackley Town to Banbury Merton Street, even though it would have been more convenient for us to go on the bus!

Great to see her preserved

The line was condemned by the LMR General Manager on tbe grounds that the line could nevef generate enough revenue. Which us exactly the position that the LMS had of the line. Please don't make statements without backing them up.

The mad rush to dieselise the railways was in part to the Clean Air Act that came in after the killer smog of 1952. The effects of smog were already well known having first been discussed in 1880 and several laws passed to prevent them occurring. When the Beaver Committee reportec in 1954 on the 1952 smog the BTC knew that it had to act and act fast. This meant the careful consideration of diesel trains envisaged in the Modernisation Plan had to be abandoned, leading to the purchase of a lot of useless locomotives.

The railways of Britain were a late starter in dieselisation not British Railways. In November 1952 BR was less than 5 years old when they announced the plan to introduce DMUs. The Railcar Association has most of the minutes of the Lightweight Diesel Train Committee (LMR) - they don't have the minutes for meetings 1 to 17 and 19 to 28 or any for meetings after meeting 91.

Crikey! Managed to miss over a decade of it's test career...😮

Excellent video, well put together. I just love these unlikely railway survival stories 🙂

Please leave pictures with text in them on screen longer as we don't know what the text says even if you do; in just a fleeting glance. Otherwise a nice try.

these where quite common in Norfolk, lots of footage and photos of them round this way hope to get a DLW back here for a bit of fun

I remember seeing Iris out and about during her RTC days. Was pleased that she was preserved as Iris with her history is an important unit and deserves to be pampered.

remember as a boy travelling on this, sitting right at the front with a drivers eye view. Marvellous to see again

What a lovely unit, very happy to see that it survived. Great that you took the time to make a video on it!

The biggest mistake made by British Railways was, and still is lack of standards for coupling codes for dmus and locos, unlike the US and Canada, where anything can couple to more or less anything.

great that someone wanted to save it

Beautiful thank you for sharing.

This is the autumn gala, not winter gala. There is no such thing as a winter gala at th watercress line! Great video tho :)

Wonderful coverage my dear new friend, greetings From Bangladesh 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

Very interesting and enjoyable, thank you. 👍👍👍👍.

Excellent video😃⤴️⤴️Fantastic steam trains and beautiful scenery😉👍️✨Thank you for sharing :)

I do like seeing the bucks railway centre gala always so much going on, Furness no.20 is such a nice loco and with similarly aged coaches it does look good. Will have get back and film here again my last video here was years ago now.

Very nice video!

Has the line north of the station all gone now? It's still shown in place on google maps, so their footage must be out of date.

So how much was in the brown Manila envelope when beeching got his kick back from marples?¹¹

Waleswood is a nice looking loco. With the line beyond quainton now gone what's the likelihood that railway centre could use the platforms for running from and even run over some of the trackbed for a short distance

great video ill hopefully visit there sometime this year

Excellent video of Waleswood in action at BRC 👍

I really wish the centre would extend their lines someday, though it'll probably never happen.

Why they called this The East Coast Mainline Event beats me.

In the late 50's it was not uncommon for the Great Central line to be used for running special trains to London for sporting events on Saturdays. Schoolboys football international, Hockey International, Rugby League Cup Final, England v Scotland football International, FA Cup final (if a northern team was involved) and the FA Amateur Cup final, all of which in those days were held at Wembley Stadium. In additional there were Starlight specials overnight trains between Marylebone and Edinburgh/Glasgow and vice versa as well as the car sleeper service from Kensington to Perth.all passing through Helmdon Station at speed and over the viaduct. Also on Saturdays during the summer overnight trains to Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings. Whitstable, Margate and Ramsgate which travelled via Kensington Olympia. Happy days!

Look forward to what 2022 has in store.

Ding ding! I'm a tram and I approve this video!

Nice to see these little videos back I do enjoy watching these look backs at the loco history.

When is Metropolitan 1 expected to be completed?

Nice to see your back filming its been a while. Looks like theres plenty of work going on at quainton then is 1900 the flying bufferbeam really would like to see that once its running.

The Great Central closure was a disaster at the time and even more of one today. In the late 1950s and early 1960s I lived in Nottingham. During this time I travelled to Leicester once a week for day release and once a week during the winter to play for a Leicester rugby team. At the same time I often travelled to London. I always used the GC route - it was fast. The line was well engineered, the first and last built by mechanical means and not wholly by hand. It was also built to continental clearances, part of the grand plan, well ahead of its time. for the GCR to run direct trains to France and beyond. This was the main reason it should never have closed. On the other hand the Midland route from Nottingham to Leicester took twice as long as as the GC . The B1s were the star performers, with usually the one stop at Loughborough, and with drivers who knew how to race along it was always a delight. Of course, there were a few surprises. Travelling to Leicester for the Saturday rugby game I was astonished to see a Merchant Navy speed past in the opposite direction and then a second a few minutes later. These were the days when football fans travelled in special trains. Southampton was playing the Forest in the FA Cup. I was abroad for several years before I returned to Nottingham. I was appalled to witness the final rites with a DMU shuttling from Arkwright Street to Rugby and back but did witness the final day when specials took to the rails. HS2 - a waste of money - far better to upgrade the existing network and re-open old lines and stations.

Another fabulous place on the GCR route, which would make a superb north/ south high speed route for HS2. The GCR was so well engineered for it's time, a great pity it wasn't utilised to better effect as time went on. Through the central heart of England, such a rapid way to travel in the horse and cart age, of the late victorian era.

Great footage...carry on!

Excellent and informative vid, thanks

Great video - thank you for making and uploading. I live near Woodford and often walk the spurs formally connecting the G.C. and Straford -upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway. These are readily accessible as they now form a public nature reserve. An idea for a future video, perhaps?

Such a waste.! Maybe HS2 will look like this in 60 years time.? Food for thought.

Are there serious defects that would make it uneconomic to return it to steam? Such as cracked frames/axles or life-expired boiler. Christ! If people built an A1 and are making a P2... How about a re-build of an Austerity with the full under-feed stoker & Gas Producer setup? The difference is that the firebox has secondary air admission holes above the fire for cleaner combustion. So that'd be a replacement boiler & re- made stoker & a Kylepor exhaust.

Any chance you have anymore silent steam episodes in the pipelines. Certainly be needing something good to watch at the minute.

To close these lines was the most shortsighted environmental decision in British history. Tragic.

if they still exists, the railway should repaint one blue and put a face on it. this might be the closet thing we can have to an E2 tank engine, and Thomas