Ex-LMS Jubilee 4-6-0 45670 “Howard of Effingham” waits impatiently at Liverpool, Lime Street station with an express for London, Euston sometime in the late 1950s. Ahead of the crew is an arduous climb through the tunnels and cuttings of the main line out of Liverpool but their steed is one of Stanier’s masterpieces of locomotive design and well up to the job.

I remember the graceful Jubilees well but only ever fired one once in my railway career and that was on a Bradford-Bournemouth express from Birmingham New Street to Bristol Temple Meads back in 1957 and we hit 90mph though Ashchurch… happy days indeed!