Great gatherings

Today in Derby was The Greatest Gathering, described as "the world's largest ever gathering of historic and modern rolling stock", everything from Locomotion No.1 from 1825 to the latest on HS2. They weren't kidding. Even the queue for ticket holders was over half a mile long and this was just Friday: the event is on Saturday and Sunday this weekend too.

Bestie and I rolled up on Biscuit the little Royal Enfield, parked up nearby and then joined the merry throng. The event is hosted at Alstom's facility and is absolutely huge. So huge in fact that really you need two days to see everything. We took in historic diesels like the Peaks and 37s and Deltics, the Baby Deltic, and Westerns and Warships and HSTs, we saw new and old steam engines like Tornado, Blue Peter, Clan Line and Sir Nigel Greseley, we saw older and newer electrics like the class 91s and Pendolinos and a solitary Eurostar power car. We looked at DMUs and EMUs, we watched narrow gauge engines and small scale model railways, and even smaller scale model railways made in intricate detail. We looked at second hand book stalls and Hornby and Bachmann displays, and walked miles around the place.

We ate Sri Lankan paneer for lunch, which was very yum, and we sat from time to time to chat and think and decompress from the thousands of people there. We hoped some famous railway enthusiast YouTubers might be there but none caught our gaze if they were.

Towards the end, beside Pete Waterman's own extensive and amazingly detailed model railway, whom should I bump into, and completely by chance, than my uncle, and his best friends who were helping him in his wheelchair. I knew he was going to be there one of the three days but didn't know which, but here he was! We had a good little catch up for ten minutes, just before the event closed for the day, and bestie kindly took a photograph of us.

Minutes later, whom should we bump into than former Flying Scotsman owner and music producer Pete Waterman himself. He very kindly posed for a photograph too.

And with that we headed back to Biscuit, retraced our steps to a supermarket for fuel and supplies for tomorrow, and then we rode back to our hotel for tea and cups of coffee for the evening.

I'm tired out!