Crompton Cornish Farewell & Cornish Swansong 22nd & 29th October 1988
I was sat at home one evening, after work at the Smeed Dean Brickworks in Sittingbourne, watching ANOTHER re-run of an original Star Trek episode while my Mum got on with her ironing (I say her ironing as no-one else was going to do it!) when the house phone rang. "Hello it's Eric Tyler from Templecombe station, we've already got enough bookings for the Crompton Farewell train on October 22nd to more than half fill another train. What do you think?" What I immediately thought was how did he get my number, I don't work for the railway & my booking for the Farewell was as part of a block booking made by someone else?! Anyway my obvious reply was to suggest running a 2nd train the following Saturday - after all that's double mileage for all of us! "How can we guarantee that we don't get the same locos both weeks, or make it so people want to do a 2nd trip?" Eric & Gerald Daniels (Salisbury Area Manager) were responsible for planning these t...