WITH FULL REGULATOR
THE LOCOMOTIVES of the month are surely the Bulleid rebuilt Merchant Navy Pacifics, No. 35018 British India Line and No. 35028 Clan Line, which is very appropriate as this issue of Heritage Railway will reach the bookstands a few days before the 51 anniversary of the end of Southern steam.
Who would have believed all those years ago that performances seen in 2018 would equal those in the last days of steam, and indeed Clan Line would produce a power output rivalling the best seen in the 1960s?
I wasn’t on any of the latest trips, so I am indebted to my correspondents David Bradbury, Alan Rawlings and Sean Emmett for details of the runs which follow.
Table One shows details of first run on the northbound‘Cumbrian Mountain Express’from Carnforth to Carlisle. This train is virtually guaranteed to be pure steam, although it’s a shame that the selected locomotive isn’t advertised beforehand, so by the time I heard that the May 12 trip would be hauled by No. 35018, I couldn’t change my plans and
