Saturday December 4, 1977 found me getting up very early as I had to be in London by 08:00. This involved driving forty kilometers to Nottingham to catch the first London bound train of the day departing at 04:00. I changed trains at Bedford onto a local train as my destination was Cricklewood (a large railway yard on the north side of London) where I was to board and ride a very unusual train.

At the time I was the chief inspector for rolling stock on the Midland Region of British Railways, and part of my remit was to accompany unusual trains in case of problems, and this was definitely an unusual train. In the early 1960’s the UK had established the National Railway Museum in an old bus garage in Clapham, South West London. By the 1970’s it was clear that the lack of both space and a rail connection were fatal flaws, so the former Locomotive Depot at York, which had been built in the 1940’s following war time bomb damage to the old depot was rebuilt to become the new National Rail Museum. In 1930 the LNER had established a small Museum at York on a different site, but this was closed and the exhibits relocated to the new museum. The preserved locomotives not at Clapham or York had led a peripatetic existence in former Depots, while rolling stock had largely been stored in the former Pullman Car workshops at Preston Park near Brighton.

So what was special about this train, well it was the “clear out” of the vehicles stored at Preston Park, so it included many unrestored (and unmaintained) vehicles. In addition Queen Victoria’s Saloon (No 802 of 1895, and itself a rebuild of two 6-wheel carriages of 1869 placed on a new underframe), was included. This was not the first train of items transferred to York that I had escorted, but two things were different, first there was no escort vehicle due to the greater length of the train and second we had a 15 mph speed restriction. Rotherham, Yorkshire where I was to be relieved was 166 miles away, so I knew that I had a long day, as we were planned to take eleven and a half hours running time with two hours for inspections, this allowing a good connection for a train back to Nottingham.

Before we set off I examined the train and was concerned that Queen Victoria’s car might not be running well as it hadn’t been run for many, many years. (It was a magnificent vehicle with for example lions heads carved into the ends of the underframe) I insisted that I rode in the car until the first stop, to ensure all was well, this met with much resistance, but my response was simple “if I’m not happy it doesn’t run”. We departed promptly at 08:00 and headed north along the goods lines which soon connected to the slow lines. On board the saloon everything was sheeted and the car ran beautifully, in particular the noise insulation was magnificent, though as it was December it was of course unheated. At the first stop for examination I abandoned the luxury of a royal saloon for the noisy and dirty cab of our diesel locomotive (45045).

All was not well with the train as several axleboxes were warm – in fact a couple were quite hot. So I spent some time checking the bearing pads and spraying oil around the journal boxes with a large copper and brass syringe. This was repeated at each stop and maddeningly it seemed to afflict different axle boxes each time. We departed our first stop a little late; our route was devised to avoid causing delays to passenger trains (there was not much freight run on Saturdays by this time) and was via the slow lines to Bedford then the goods lines from there to Kettering, where we turned away from the main line and followed the Corby Loop line, which at that time was lightly used mainly as a diversion line. This included crossing the magnificent Harringworth Viaduct,1275 yards (1.16km) long with 82 brick arches up to 60 feet high, then through Melton Mowbray, Toton, Chesterfield and following the original route to Rotherham (avoiding Sheffield).

So we slowly carried on loosing time at each examination point, but the railway of the 1970’s was still built for both freight and passenger traffic so with our route the slow progress did not cause any problems – except for ourselves, as our crew ran out of time! Luckily (or not?) we had reached the major traffic centre of Toton, where one might imagine that crews would be available, but late on a Saturday evening it was a two hour wait before a crew was found. When they were on board we resumed our leisurely progress, by now we had totally blown our connection back from Rotherham, and at our last examination stop at Chesterfield the driver announced that we were in danger of missing the last train from Rotherham (the mail) unless we got a move on, so I asked how fast we needed to go, he said 45 mph. Quite a change from 15 mph!

By now I was tired and dirty, and not particularly keen to spend six or seven hours in a bothy (bunkhouse) at Rotherham, so I said "OK" before heading to the back cab of the locomotive to watch the train. It felt nice to be moving at a more reasonable speed but in the flashes of light as we went under road bridges the rocking and rolling of the irreplaceable vintage cars was alarming, in particular the first car in the train which was a suburban multiple unit car from 1914 that used to run between Euston and Watford (known as Oerlikon stock); well known for their exuberant ride, it was certainly living up to its reputation. I found out later that the traction motors were not de-meshed as they should have been, and worse the motors had received no lubrication for their plain bearings since a long time before. It is a tribute to their construction that no damage occurred.

We rolled into Rotherham at around 01:15 on Sunday morning, my relief was pleased to see us, as he had been waiting for four hours. Amazingly all the bearings were cool, I explained why we were late and suggested that 30 to 35 mph was more suitable. We walked onto the platform and boarded the mail which was being held for us and so back to Nottingham around 03:00, twenty three hours since I left. Luckily the roads were quiet and I was home in forty five minutes. A journey to remember indeed!