ONE of the masterminds behind the 150th anniversary celebration of the railways in 1975 has died aged 91.

Archie Brown was British Rail’s Darlington area manager in the 1970s and so was responsible for the rail side of the festivities, which culminated with a Grand Rail Cavalcade from Shildon to Darlington, watched by half-a-million people, on August 31, 1975.

He told The Northern Echo in 2005: “Despite planning many events in my railway career, this was the most exciting, exhilarating and satisfying day that I experienced in all of my 40 years of railway operational involvement.”

Mr Brown was born into a railway family in the Scottish borders, and joined the London North Eastern Railway aged 14 as a parcels clerk at Haymarket station in Edinburgh. He moved into control, and fell in love with the voice of Mary, the Waverley station announcer, who he spoke to most days on the telephone. Over the phone, he asked her out, and they married in 1954.

In 1969, he was appointed to the Darlington post. In those days, the railway manager was a leading citizen in the town, and he was one of those who met Princess Anne in 1970 when she opened the new town hall.

Planning for the 150th anniversary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway then began in earnest, in partnership with townspeople led by Herbert Wolfe.

Events in 1975 included an exhibition at the Magnet Bowl (most recently Sports Direct but now empty), opened by Home Secretary Willie Whitelaw, the opening of North Road Station Museum by the Duke of Edinburgh, the opening of the Timothy Hackworth Museum at Shildon by the Queen Mother, and a Sunday service broadcast on national television from Bank Top station.

The cavalcade was the climax. “I remember great excitement in Darlington,” he said.

“Shops were decorated, flags were flying, everywhere looked clean, a feeling of well-being abounded – something was in the air and we were all going to enjoy ourselves.”

Mr Brown oversaw the arrival of 18 charter trains from across the country, a shuttle service ferrying 20,000 people from Darlington to Shildon, and then, on the day itself, the departure of 32 engines at two minute intervals from Shildon, starting with a replica of Locomotion No 1 and concluding with the High Speed Train prototype.

“The whole operation, controlled from my room at Darlington station, worked like a dream which was very much a tribute to the absolute devotion to duty of all the rail staff involved,” he said.

His last full year in the town was 1978, which included Prince Charles stopping the Royal Train at Bank Top station and getting out to sign a visitor’s book – an event that went like clockwork, despite a bomb hoax shortly before the prince arrived.

Mr Brown was then promoted to be area manger of Aberdeen – “Rail chief off to boom city”, was the headline in the Echo’s sister paper, the Evening Despatch.

He retired from the railway in 1982, and then worked for construction companies in the Aberdeen area.

He died on Wednesday. His funeral is at 10am on June 4 at Baldarroch Crematorium, Crathes, Banchory, Aberdeenshire.