24 STC members enjoyed a Steam hauled train ride from London Victoria to Eastbourne, returning along the coast via Hastings and then using a different route back into Victoria. Weather did us proud, we rode in classic British Rail First Class coaches, and got fed and watered.
Members were from far and wide, including Scotland, making the trip a part of a week’s break in London.
We played a short game of musical platforms at the start, they waited till about 10mins before departure before (quietly) telling a few that the train would be leaving from platform 7, not platform 1 where 200plus were in a (very British) queue. Just like the good old commuter days!
There is an amazing amount of open countryside still about to admire on the route, out through Surrey and the Sussex countryside, and back through Sussex and Kent.
We had an early arrival, which gave us an additional 35mins in Eastbourne, useful for those who wanted to get as far as the pier. Crowds of photographers all along the route, not just in stations but in random fields and country lanes as well. Somewhere in ‘the storage cloud(s)’ must be thousands of photographs of LMS Black 5 4-6-0 No 45212 in full steam.
We were accompanied by a vintage diesel loco, mostly bringing up the rear. It did a good job of hauling us backwards into Hastings so that we could have the Steam Engine at the front again for the London bound leg of the trip.