A wet whistle

Today marks the start of Railway 200, a series of events to celebrate 200 years since the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, officially the first railway in the world.  Today, heritage railways across the country and around the world celebrated the start of the year by blowing engine whistles at midday.  Here, Hercules is about to set off after taking part at Sheringham station.

There are quite a few events planned for the year but none will match the steam cavalcade at Shildon in Co. Durham in 1975.  It hardly seems like 50 years ago that I set off on my motorbike with my then girlfriend on the pillion and headed for Shildon to see the events.  I had my Kodak Instamatic 200 with me, and a brand new 36 exposure film in it, hoping to get plenty of shots.  Sadly, for some reason none of the shots came out and the film was blank, so I have no record of the day.