It was on August 12th, 1968 that a ban on steam trains running on the mainline network came into force. After this date steam trains would largely only run on heritage railway sites apart from the odd excursion.
On Tuesday I travelled from Carmarthen to Manchester by train. It’s a popular line and the trains get busy. But with all the rain and wind we have had recently, it’s become a bit of lottery.
As I was talking to some people from Amtrak, the American railway company, a week or so ago, I was left thinking about the names of rail journeys. They still have the Coast Starlight which runs from Seattle to Los Angeles conjuring up a rather romantic moonlight journey and services like the Texas Eagle, Pacific Surfliner and The Silver Meteor. The 20th Century Ltd doesn’t run any more apart from in re-runs of Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and the Orient Express ended just running from Strasbourg to Vienna till that ended last December. In Australia, the Indian-Pacific does exactly what it’s name suggests, linking two oceans and the Trans-Siberian also does just what it says..