Alberta error

I READ with interest the various articles in the October issue concerning ‘The Queen and her railways’. For 1968, the article states ‘On the 18th [of October]… motive power was ‘Jubilee’ No. 45562

Alberta taking the monarch to open the Tyne Tunnel’.

Apart from the fact that the Tyne Tunnel was opened in 1967 (not 1968) when I was at University in Newcastle, Alberta

was herself scrapped in 1967 and all steam locomotives, apart from Flying Scotsman, had been banned from the main line following the ‘15 Guinea special’ of August 1968.

Richard Taylor

Carlisle

Richard is quite correct – this entry for

Alberta slipped into the wrong year and we should have said the loco hauled the Queen for the opening of the Tyne Tunnel in October 1967 – just a few months before the ‘Jubilee’ was withdrawn and scrapped. Thanks also to Pete Cutler, Stephen Dando, and Kevin Driscoll for pointing this out – Ed.