7th May 1994

Class 20 Locomotive Society
The Metro Gnome

Route :

Review :
The £17-50 tour ching included the bonus of a free Travelcard for the day so a few of us used turbos 165013/026 from Marylebone to get to the unknown haunt of Harrow on the Hill. A beast of a Class A Met line tube took us back to Wembley Park.

A few minutes down, Metropolitan Vicker's 1921 built monster, number 12 " Sarah Siddons" arrived hauling a 5 coach rake. At the rear of the ex 4TC and mk 2b consist was an immaculate 20227. After an initial farce over seats we were soon enjoying growling Sarah thrash to astonished looks from normals on parallel running tubes.

The first of many reversals saw 20227 take over for the climb up the bank to Chalfont before the steep decent into Chesham. To give us a branch path the scheduled service had been replaced by a bus, imagine that on the Blaneau branch!

A 1 minute turn-round at Chesham then Sarah showed off her hp in a steady climb back up to Chalfont and downhill to Harrow. A reversal at Harrow, then a rainy lunch stop at Amersham before various jaunts to Watford and Harrow. This station was visited by the tour seven times! The last new destination was Uxbridge where Sarah at the stops and 20227 thrashing on departure were perhaps the highlights of a truly outrageous day out. 5 hours of non stop action with 45 powered miles behind each loco, and all on track unfamiliar to both us and 20227. The Metropolitan line proved to be a bit more than just another tube line.

Source : Nick Ross

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