January 1963


In which I continue my third year at Reading University and visit Worksop.

Wednesday 2 January

Went to Sheffield by train with Pat this afternoon to do some shopping.  I don't think a great deal of the town - it is very dirty.  The Town Hall has been cleaned upnbut most of the other buildings are a dirty black because of all the smoke, sulphur etc., in the atmosphere.  We werelucky in that the trains in both directions were hauled by B1 class 4-6-0s.

Friday 4 January

I returned from Worksop to Orpington today.  The weather was still bad so I decided to go by train via Nottingham.  I caugt the 11.27 train which left an hour late from Worksop, hauled by 2-6-4 tank No. 42089 (similar to some I worked on at Shoeburyness) to Nottingham Midland.  I was lucky enough to catch a fast train to London which only stopped at Kettering.  The weather didn't seem to make much difference to the "Peak" class diesel and we were into St. Pancras round about on time.  There is still a good variety of steam to be seen in the Nottingham area. ther eis about one foot of snow, frozen solid, in Orpington.

The weather was pretty bitter with much snow and ice.  I was spending most of my time studying for finals.  I visited the reading steam shed during this period and they were having many problems keeping the locomotives running in the severe weather - unfortunately I did not record this.

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