Spring?

Although the strong to gale force easterly winds have caused some damage, we have been spared the heavy snow that has fallen in many parts of the Country.
 My best Pal who called last Tuesday went back home, well I say he went but he told me that he would be going back the next morning.
 It was a couple of days later that we had snow. As he lives in Derbyshire he would have had much more snow than we had here.
 I did ring my Sister up in Grantham on Saturday and she told me that it was snowing hard and had been snowing from 6.00am. It is mt intention to try to get over there later this week. Whether I will depends on the weather.
 recently there was a programme celebrating the steam engine Flying Scotsman. As I worked on the Railway and Flying Scotsman was based at Grantham in the 1950s when I was a young cleaner I decided to record it on my hard disc.
  I watched it last night with nostalgia. I did not know that until the Empire Exhibition in the 1920s that the steam engine had no  name and it was named after "The Flying Scotsman". This was a daily run from King's Cross to Edinburgh leaving at 10.00am. each day. It only stopped at Grantham and Newcastle, this was change steam engines and crew.
It originally arrived at Grantham at Noon but when I started it arrived at 11.45am. This actually turned out to be the normal time for running an express train from Kings Cross to Grantham. In the 50s and 60s the time for most expresses was that. It was 105 miles from King's Cross to Grantham, hence it was an average of 60mph. There were of course some restrictions. Going through Peterborough Station was a speed limit of 20mph because of the severe bends. Now of course it is all different, the platforms have been altered and straightened.
 I was informed by a fellow footplateman that the fastest train from King's Cross stopping at Grantham was called "The White Rose" 105 miles in 100 minutes. Not bad for the late 50s. Now of course, the electric trains do the journey in 1hour 20 minutes. Mind you, where we had 13 coaches on the new trains have a maximum of 9. I guess that is progress. More soon.