after the success and fun in london on the saturday and the evening at work on sunday I was up again on bank holiday monday with a new intention. monday was to be my first ever visit to the leighton buzzard narrow gauge railway. what better occasion to visit this railway than on a special event day and boy was it a good one, it was the last day of their big engines weekend with a theme of indian and african locos. Representing india were the very special guest locomotive from a private railway in oxfordshire it was the only B class 0-4-0 outside of india from the Darjeeling Himalayan railway number 19, built in the UK and worked it's career on the DHR in india before being withdrawn in 1960 and sent to america until it was brought back to england, the other indian loco ironically build in the USA was baldwin 4-6-0 no. 778. representing africa were avonside sezela no. 4 & elf, the 4 locos ran to the enhanced timetable on the railway each (except for elf due to the last train not being required) running 2 trips on the line. again i had a fantastic time and had atleast one trip on all 4 locos in use on the day. i certainly hope it won't be my last visit and i hope one day to run into the DHR B class again

after the previous week out with some diesels, this weekend on the 25th of may 2013 I headed out of peterborough to london. at the start of my time in london i headed straight to london liverpool street station to watch the departure of the railway touring company's fenman anniversary railtour hauled by no. 34067 tangmere due to the planned loco not being repaired intime, after this I headed to the circle line to clear a bit of required track before heading over to the metropolitan line, it was the start of a very special weekend for london underground as this weekend marked the return of the Steam on the met specials. starting from ruislip depot the special train consisting of a class 20 diesel, the metropolitan railway 1st class carriage, the 4TC MK1 coaching stock, met no. 12 Sarah Siddons and steam engine L150 headed to wembley park while another pair of class 20s took the remaining 2 steam locos straight to amersham. the locos involved in running the service were GWR 4575 class number L150 (5521), GWR 94XX no. 9466 & star attraction metropolitan railways no. 1 supported by class 20 L189 (20189) with 20142 & 20227 on display at amersham. L150 headed the first train from wembley to amersham there giving the lead to (my surprise) both met 1 & 9466. I joined the train at amersham where the class 20 started us off before giving over to steam for the return leg from harrow-on-the-hill. L150 did the last run & the ECS after the day's work.
I thoroughly enjoyed steam on the met and also had the extra privilege of meeting The Hairy Bikers on the met special train. can't wait for the next one

As a starter to the nene valley railway's 2013 spring diesel gala I went out to watch the arrival of the convoy of visiting locos arrive on the line, the convoy included 56301, 56303, 56103, 37109 & 50008 the convoy ran to plan and the 50 was let loose between orton mere and wansford to run the convoy however this proved to be the only time the 50 turned it's wheels in anger on the line as on the friday the loco failed with a main generator fault so unfortunately missed the gala as did the promised colas rail class 47. as they say though onwards and upwards, the visiting class 20s arrived on the saturday to start their visit for the gala, I travelled on the trains on the saturday and had a pleasant day, which started off 4 minutes late the gala never ran any later than 15 minutes late and a great time was had by me which also had the very surprising twist in that whilst at peterborough nene valley on the last normal passenger train LMS steam train no. 45699 Galatea ran by on the mainline on it's way to anglia to take up a spec, the group of people i hung round with had grown massively by the time the last trains were running and as the beer-ex reached peterborough bade farewell to my friends as i headed back to wansford to collect the car and go home, sunday was lineside day but only till 4 o'clock as i had to get ready for work, again the day ran no later than 15 minutes late and by monday all the visitors were gone, the 20s left on sunday but the 5 convoyers left together half hour after galatea the LMS jubilee ran by on it's way home also