The Final Countdown

The hours and minutes are now counting down in this historic week, culminating in Saturday’s Last Train Commemoration.

If the sight and sound of witnessing three Terriers, all immaculately presented in BR livery and now all aged in their 130s is not sufficient to whet the appetite, then how about adding in the P-class which is also over a hundred years old and has the distinction of being built locally?  This means that over half of a millennium has culminatively passed since these four little 0-6-0 tanks engines first saw the light of day at Brighton and Ashford respectively.

Nowadays we import trains from other countries, notably Germany, and call it progress.

Pilgrims to this most auspicious event will be delighted to learn that The Terrier Trust has been updated with the plans for Saturday.  It can now be confirmed that the P-class is lined up to work both Vintage train workings and that the first and last trains from Tenterden Town at 10.45am and 3.35pm will run as previously indicated with the first being the main Commemoration train with 32670 and 32662 topping and tailing.  If needed, 32678 will be available in a Thunderbird role.

The triple-header will have 32678 as the middle pilot so 32670 and 32662 will face as expected.

The variation comes with the middle trains and the birdcage shuttles.  The 11.10am from Tenterden Town/12noon off Rolvenden will enable 32678 to be topped up with coal for her two afternoon round trips; 32662 will be similarly serviced off the 1.50pm/2.30pm respective workings.  Such extra workings between Rolvenden and Tenterden Town were a feature of K&ESR before the closure of the railway to passengers and the Northern Extension in 1954.

HN-06/06/2011