Caption:

Since the beginning of inter-regional passenger traffic from the West

Coast line north of the Thames to the south, pioneered by the LNWR/LBSCR Sunny South Express, locomotive changes have taken place at Mitre Bridge Junction, Willesden and here a Merrymaker Excursion from the Medway towns and south-east London to Birmingham and Wolverhampton in the early 1970s has shed its Southern Type 3 Class 33 diesel for an AC lines electric and is about to make a swift run to Britain’s second city. It is early in the morning and the train has travelled via Herne Hill, Stewarts Lane and Latchmere junction to gain the colloquially named West London Extension line via Kensington Olympia. We were using this train as a means to travel onwards to Chester – see the Class 24 photographed there that day later in this book – via Shrewsbury and return via Crewe to Wolverhampton. It was a very long day.