Morris Minor Owners Club

No - not me -the Locomotive. Is 'hoped' to be on display, in steam at the platform of Bo'ness Railway Station on the afternoon of Monday 16th May. No guarantees - anything can happen - but it's likely to be rarely in Scotland and not often sitting still for inspection like this ! It's a larger version of Morayshire shown below and uses many of the same parts - wheels/springs/parts of the motion etc - Mr Gresley was a great believer in standardisation.

It's also visiting the Salisbury - Southampton - Eastleigh area on the afternoon of the 21 st of May. It gets about.

I knoq that she several different liveries during her life, but don't understand why her owners decided to use that black rather than her LNER green and 4472 fir which she is so wekk known. Very disappointing to see her treated that way.

It's green! It was turned out in black undercoat for testing......

Ah, the pictures I saw shower her nationalised number and an article said that she was in "wartime" colours.

Very green now..and many thousands turned up at Bo'ness to see the Locomotive on Monday - the crowd exceeded all expectations. My mate had the good luck to 'fire' Flying Scotsman (he was the 'conductor' because the Driver didn't have knowledge of the private railway line ) away from Bo'ness early on Tuesday morning as they set off back to York - something he will certainly never forget!

I have a trip booked behind Flying Scotsman and then Tornado, at the Severn Valley Railway in September.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36349484

beautiful

You lucky chap Blaketon !

Plin wrote: You lucky chap Blaketon !

I'll post pictures. In the meantime, I am entered in a classic car show at the SVR in July, though not in the Traveller.

Roy your mate must have been the envy of you all? What a great experience for him but also for your railway to have such a famous visitor.

Thanks Blaketon, shall look forward to your piccies - unless of course you find you're too excited to take any!

Jealous as h*ll - but I'm not fit for it now.

With the forum having been down and a case of memory fade, this had slipped my mind. Here are some of the photos.

Tornado hauled my train to Bridgnorth (Tender first), whilst Flying Scotsman hauled it back to Kidderminster (Engine first). I made sure to be at the back of the up train, so as be at the front coming back (Seats being allocated on entry to the train and as an early arriver, I was able to fix this).

I'm sure this was the first time when even the famous Tornado has been second fiddle, as although Tornado attracted a lot of attention, when Flying Scotsman appeared, it all moved up a few notches. There were (I think) eight or nine coaches on, all pre booked and full. There were however more people watching, than there were on the train. Besides there being onlookers at the SVR stations all down the line (Where the train didn't stop), there were people watching from fields (Entry £5 a time so I heard), bridges and even from the top of a storage container in the industrial estate in Kidderminster. I even saw drones flying above and beside the train.

As it was rather busy, I caught the first train home from Kidderminster and later had a superb meal at my local, aptly named the Railway Tavern (The railway itself being long gone), rounding off a very enjoyable day.

For some reason, I can't post all the photos in one place.

The last two.

Lovely locomotive. Is it just me or does anyone else think the "G" in "Flying" on the brass loco plate looks like a "C"? I spotted it when it was a tyseley.

They do look similar but if you look closely they are a slightly different shape

I hadn't noticed, but there does seem to be a bit missing off the G. I have a book on the loco and I will have a look to see what it was like in the past. I would guess, that as the loco was never scrapped, the name plate might be original. With some of the engines, that were sent to yards like Barry Scrapyard, before being rescued, name plates disappeared and are now worth a lot of money. As a result, it's often cheaper for the restorers to get a new name plate made, than to try and buy the original.

nice photos Blaketon my sister and bro-in-law have booked to go on FS later this year

Is that mainline or preserved line? Let's hope for some photos.