‘mayflower’ stuck in ipswich – so what went wrong?

Steam Dreams boss and former Ipswich spotter David Buck has spent hours with ‘B1s’ at his local station… and that was just on July 4.

In fact, he thinks the day’s trip holds the record for the longest a steam engine’s ever stood at the Suffolk town’s Platform 2 facing the tunnel and London – and it hadn’t even been meant to stop. That, including help from the town’s fire brigade and the transfer of passengers to service trains to see them back to Liverpool Street, was the culmination of a series of knocks to the day’s itinerary that had paired his Thompson 4‑6‑0 with the Great Eastern.

In summary though, David reports that it was a combination of wrong routing near Norwich and problems with the ‘33’ diesel that was running ‘top and tail’ with ‘Mayflower’ that led to the ‘B1’ calling on the local fire brigade.

This train was always planned to change its direction of travel across East Anglia – but the route mistake swapped which engine was which at any point. That meant the train arrived at Dereham for servicing the other way round to planned – resulting in more hassle and lost time. Then it was steam rather than diesel‑ hauled to Norwich – adding more mileage for the ‘B1’. With the diesel’s illness, this was enough to raise doubts about the North British engine carrying on to the Mark’s Tey water stop a bit more than 20 miles further on. Also, to make things just a bit more complicated, the lack of a functioning diesel also meant no shunt engine to drag the returning train from Liverpool Street…

This raises a side point about having diesels along – which is that they can fail too. However, says David: “If you look at our trains this year, I can’t recall one where we took a diesel if we didn’t have to.”

“The majority of our trips are out of a London terminus – and you need a diesel to get in and out. We do leave it behind where we can.”

Aside from that, perhaps the ending shouldn’t completely overshadow what was apparently a decent trip up to that point – especially as by Ipswich the dining was done, and the shift to service trains meant people made it back for last connections; the ‘B1’ carried on with the empty stock.

Not to be put off, David reports that he will absolutely be taking No. 61306 back to the Great Eastern again.

“There can certainly be occasions when you think ‘why am I doing this?’”, he says.

“That was not the case at Ipswich.

I like challenges.”