Strathspey steam legend back-tracks 90 years - bang on time!
Strathspey Steam Railway is celebrating the success of its 90th anniversary re-run of a very special locomotive.
Thursday saw the recreation of the Watkinson Trust’s Black 5 locomotive 5025 from Platform 3 at Aviemore.
“We’re really pleased at the public’s response, both at the station and online,” said a spokesman for the company.
“The Highland railway played a significant part in the opening up of the Strathspey area to recreational tourism and at 90 years of age, 5025 is still hard at work, enthralling young and old and indeed all who love traveling back in time, to the age of steam travel.”
The Watkinson Trust had discovered that the locomotive is not only the first of the class released into traffic - the Vulcan Foundry locomotives were in traffic before the first batch from Crewe, and Vulcan Foundry held 5020 back for the official photographs - but its first passenger train ran from Perth to Inverness, via Forres, over what is now the line of the Strathspey Railway from Aviemore North towards Grantown.
The train left Aviemore, heading for Forres on September 5, 1934, at 15:03, from the same platform that Strathspey Railway trains now operate.
And on Thursday it left the station bang on time again, at 15:03.
