Arthur Peppercorn the LNER’s Last Chief Mechanical Engineer Remembered
By chance, during a family visit to Hadley Wood in the early 1960s I was delighted to find the house in which we stayed sat very close to the LNER’s old main line. It was a summer Saturday and express trains flew past at regular intervals. For some reason, one came to a halt within thirty or so yards of where I stood – a Peppercorn A1, No.60149, Amadis, by then a Doncaster engine. The fact that the driver and fireman called a greeting and both waved made me an instant fan of them and their locomotive. From that moment, I longed to travel behind one of these A1s but it wasn’t to be while BR operated steam locomotives. In fact, I had to wait until the reborn A1 Tornado was visiting the West Somerset Railway fifty years later for this particular wish to be granted. I wasn’t disappointed.
