WITH FULL REGULATOR LOCOMOTIVE PERFORMANCE THEN AND NOW
SATURDAY, April 13 was a day to remember for devotees of main line steam as there were no less than four steam-hauled charters, one of which produced a new record time in the preservation era – see Main Line News page 56 for a summary of the day’s events. I would like to have been on the Tornado-hauled‘The Border Raider’ but the schedules were such that it wasn’t certain that I would be able to return home that same evening, so I booked on the Railway Touring Company’s‘The Pennine Blackpool Express’. Word filtered through during the evening of a quite extraordinary effort over the tightly timed Carlisle to Shap section of‘The Border Raider’and so this is covered first.
New record time to Shap
‘The Border Raider’ran from Birmingham New Street to Carlisle via Warrington, Blackburn, Hellifield and the Settle and Carlisle line, returning via Shap and Preston. It was steam-hauled by No. 60163 from Crewe back to Crewe. Table Two shows its work between Bamber Bridge and Hellifield set against the running of No. 45690 , but thanks to my correspondents Sean Emmett and 1020 Shireman, I from Carlisle to Shap summit where, by a whisker, it set a new fastest time in the preservation era.
