What a lot of fuss over six steam engines! About 120,000 people visited the six surviving A4s at Shildon’s Locomotion museum last week – nearly double the anticipated number

AND everyone that Memories has bumped into during the past seven days has had a story to tell of the length of the queue they endured just to get in – back to the south side of Heighington is the longest so far recorded.

Everyone finished their anecdote by saying: “But it was worth it.”

Many people have also pointed out that in Memories 166, we were so excited by the prospect of the Great Goodbye that we had the A4s steaming through Bishop Auckland to reach the museum.

A nonsense. Sorry.

Memories 166 was telling of Saturday, February 20, 1954, when an A4, Quicksilver, pulled a special football supporters’ train to Crook for the quarter-final of the FA Amateur Cup.

In the match, Crook Town beat their visitors, Hitchin Town of Hertfordshire, 10-1, although many people remember the day as much for the engine as they do for the football.

Dennis Mawson has sent in the match report from April 1954 edition of Trains Illustrated.

“The progress of Crook Town in the FA Amateur Cup has resulted in entertainment on the railway side,” it began. “For the second time only, it is believed, in the long history of the Stockton and Darlington outpost, it saw a Pacific on January 30, 1954, when A3 No 60051, piloted by an A5 4-6-2 tank from Darlington, worked right through to Crook with an excursion from Romford.”

This must be a reference to the second round of the cup when Crook beat their visitors from Romford 6-0, despite the trainload of Essex supporters pulled by the A3, Blinkbonny, which was the same class of locomotive as Flying Scotsman.

Trains Illustrated continued: “This was eclipsed when A4 No 60015, piloted by A5 No 69851, arrived in Crook with the 11-coach Hitchin Town supporters’ train.

“The previous Pacific visitor was also an A4, which was noted there when Crook Town reached the semi-finals of this competition of this competition in 1950.”

Dennis also believes an A1 Pacific, No 60158 Aberdonian visited Crook in the 1950s – perhaps again pulling a football special.

It may have become derailed in the sidings leading up to the Bankfoot cokeworks.

Says Dennis: “I wondered if some of your other readers may be able to identify the A4 which was reported to have visited Crook in 1950, and whether there is anything to verify the presence of Aberdonian in the town?”