Flying Scotsman

Tomorrow, Flying Scotsman will head the 'Inaugural Run', the first journey out of London Kings Cross since the finish of its amazingly expensive overhaul.  Of course, it has to get to London in the first place so today it ran down from York with just a support coach.  Here, it is passing through Sandy station at speed.

When I was in my teens I went on a railtour around the North of England behind Flying Scotsman and whilst I have good memories of the day, I couldn't remember exactly when it was or the exact route taken.  I recently came across a fairly amazing website, Six Bells Junction, which is an absolute goldmine of information relating to railtours dating as far back as 1841 and from which I discovered that my day out was on 29th June 1969. There were also some photos of the day, one of which has someone walking along the track next to the engine at Keighley who looks remarkably like me (I had hair then!).  I wonder.......