BAD LINE… TELEPHONE HALTS ‘MAYFLOWER’ ON ‘CATHEDRALS EXPRESS’

As gauging problems go, this was pretty bizarre. David Buck’s ‘B1’ No. 61306 ‘Mayflower’ was only around 5½ miles from Euston when it was stopped from going any further at Willesden North Junction – and sent back whence it came.

It was a strange and unwelcome end to a trip to Worcester on March 30 – and one in which even the most hardened of gricers might for once have been glad to have a diesel on the back. By the time the ‘Cathedrals Express’ had reversed to Harrow & Wealdstone, the passengers had transferred to a specially held London Northwestern service, and that train had reached its destination, it was nearly half-past midnight. The charter had been due into Euston at 11.19pm.

But… why? The short answer is that the Thompson 4-6-0 was prohibited from running into Euston on the Up Fast, owing to a gauging restriction near Kensal Green – the offending structure apparently being a lineside telephone. Instead, the train was to head for London on the Up Slow. That would have been fine except that, this being Saturday evening, the Slow lines were blocked for an engineering possession. And that fact, says Network Rail’s Jack Harvey, “was missed when the train was timed”.

He added though that the “correct action was taken on the day by the staff”.

Following the trips, Steam Dreams sent a note to passengers explaining that the driver asked to have the train ‘walked past’ the telephone – but that was turned down – having already pulled up on realising the train hadn’t been put over onto the Fast.

Steam Dreams chairman David Buck described what happened as “something we’ve never come across before, so it obviously came as a great surprise. But we managed to get the passengers home thanks to the modern railway holding a train at Harrow & Wealdstone, for our people to get on.”

That train waited for 25 minutes.

Not the glorious end to a splendid day out that had been hoped for, certainly.

It’s a reminder too of how thin the thread sometimes is that allows trains to be gauged and engines to run. Beyond that, well, rather than trying to jump to any wider criticism let’s hope and assume it remains what it is… simply a bizarre one-off.