Spot the error......with a Class 50 hauled charter including the

word 'Thunderer' one would expect to see 50008 hauling the train and this was the plan! However, a short while after leaving its Severn Valley base the previous day to reach Burton-on-Trent 50008 failed its 'fitness to run' exam at Bescot so was hastily returned whence it came from and 50049 was substituted. The Branch Line Society charter, with an ambitious route, was able to run and did so to time throughout the day with the locomotives appearing to behave themselves faultlessly. Making a fine site 50007 'Hercules' leads 50049 'Defiance' on the outward leg of the charter past Old Linslade that had left East Midlands Parkway at 06.05 heading for Margate. It was good that the signallers had the confidence that the combined five thousand four hundred horsepower could keep the train going at a sustained one hundred miles per hour as they put it out on the fast after it left Bletchley despite being sandwiched between a Pendolino and a Voyager!