Hall Royd Junction Box nameboard as preserved at the East Lancashire Raiway, Bury

London Transport 150 years of the Circle Line: 20 January 2013

Just once in a while it's nice to get up to town, and as luck would have it, a ticket came available to travel on the LT 150 steam train pulled by Metroloitan Number 1 (or possibly more accuratelky propelled by electric loco 'Sarah Siddons').

Either way, it was a truely memorable evening and London Transport are to be congratulated for putting on such a remarkable show.

I had the chance to ride in the Bluebell Railway's wonderfully cared-for Chesham set - who would have thought you would have been able to ride in a historical wooden-bodied carriage on the Circle Line in 2013? The stunning restoration of carriage 353 by the Ffestiniog Railway's Boston Lodge C&W team has rightly won much praise, and another product of the specialist team is currently siting on Platform 9 at Paddington Station (February 24th, 2013 for six weeks). This is the 1863-built No. 1 'Princess' (and much rebuilt subsequently), one of the very early narrow-guage pioneers to survive, and who has allowed me to rest my beer-glass on her footplate when she resided in Spooner's bar at the Harbour Station in Porthmadog on a number of occasions....

There is no sound with the clip, but then some of the footage was from within the new booking hall plaza at Farringdon, so there wouldn't have been much to hear anyway.

Enjoy!