STAR LETTERS
East Coast snapshots
I ENJOYED John Heaton’s article (March issue), it brought back two memories of my childhood living very close to the East Coast Main Line in Peterborough.
Firstly, the ‘Plant Centenarian’. As a nine-year-old, just starting to get hooked on trainspotting, I used to wander down to Spital shed with a pal, after Sunday School, including on September 20, 1953.
After viewing the shed yard, we went up to Spital Bridge where we found a man setting up a camera and tripod. He told us that a special was coming through, and asked us to be quiet and still so that he could get a good photograph. A few minutes later, the ‘Plant Centenarian’ came through on the Stamford lines with its strange engines. We thought that they must be ‘Westerns’ as they didn’t have a five-digit number. The gentleman patiently explained to us what a preserved Atlantic was and the meaning of ‘Plant Centenarian’.