Union of South Africa: Stories from the Support Crew

Edited by Michael Mather (softback, Amberley Publishing, 96pp, £15.99, ISBN 978-1-4456-8275-4).

‘NUMBER 9' needs no introduction to readers. One of six A4 Pacifics saved for the heritage sector, at first it ran on farmer John Cameron's long-closed Lochy Private Railway in Fife, and when BR relaxed its ban on steam, made a triumphant return to the main line.

John has provided the foreword to this absorbing compendium of stories about No. 60009 from 1966 to the present day, in which it had been retired and earmarked for permanent static display at his proposed Fife visitor centre.

John recalled how his pride and joy,

by then in private ownership, hauled the Scottish Region's 1967 ‘Farewell to Steam' special from Perth to Aberdeen, and then in 2015, it headed the Royal Train carrying the Queen from Edinburgh Waverley to Tweedbank for the opening ceremony of the Borders Railway.

The locomotive has regularly found itself at the backbone of the revivalist movement. On October 29, 1994, following repairs at Bridgnorth Works on the Severn Valley Railway, it hauled the first steam special since Flying Scotsman in 1969 out of King's Cross.

As John states, none of the many memories contained in the book could have been possible without the support of crew members, to whom he is eternally grateful.

Well illustrated with colour photographs throughout, this is a lasting tribute to those crews and the machine they drove. UNMISSABLE MAIN LINE HISTORY