THE Great Goodbye starts this weekend at Locomotion: the National Railway Museum at Shildon. As we told last week, the six surviving A4 steam locomotives from the 1930s will gather for what will probably be the last time in our lifetimes before two of them return to their north American homes.

The most famous of the A4s is the Mallard, and the Great Goodbye is the conclusion of the year-long celebration of the 75th anniversary of its most famous day – July 3, 1938 – when it set the world steam speed record.

The streamlined A4 locos were built by the London and North Eastern Railway to run superfast on the East Coast Main Line, and it was rare for them to stray onto branchlines.

On those rare occasions when engineering work blocked the main line between Darlington and Durham, they would have been diverted off it at Parkgate Junction, gone through Bishop Auckland and then returned to the main line at Relly Mill Junction, just south of Durham.

For an A4 to venture further west than Bishop Auckland was a once-in-a-trainspotter’slifetime occurrence.

But, reports John Askwith, the archivist of the Weardale railway, it happened on Saturday, February 20, 1954. And its appearance was thanks to amateur football.

No 60015 Quicksilver – the second of the A4s built in September 1935 at Doncaster – hauled a football special from London King’s Cross to Crook, carrying Hitchin Town supporters (Hitchin is beside the main line in Hertfordshire).

It was the quarter-final of the FA Amateur Cup, and in snowy weather, it is said that a crowd of 23,000 saw Crook 62 MEMORIES northernecho.co.uk SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2014 Straying from main line If you have anything to add to today’s Echo Memories, please write to Chris Lloyd, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF. Email: chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk, call 01325-505062, leave a comment on the Echo Memories blog on the Echo website, or tweet @echochrislloyd thrash Hitchin 10-1 – the visitors were “completely bewildered”, said The Northern Echo.

The Northern Echo:
Union of South Africa in Stanhope station on May 14, last year

The visitors then had to get back on their A4, which had been turned at Bishop Auckland station, for the long journey home.

Of course, Crook’s journey in the Cup was even longer: they reached the final in which they played Bishop Auckland three times, watched by a total of 192,000 fans, before they famously ran out winners.

In the 1960s, when the Beeching axe fell and steam was replaced by diesel on British Railways, Bishop Auckland trainspotters thought that August 20, 1967, would be a sad day for them. It was the last known day when an A4, Sir Nigel Gresley, passed through their town as part of a tour from Doncaster to Edinburgh Waverley and return.

Would a streamlined dreamliner ever return?

The answer was yes – on May 14, last year. Union of South Africa ventured all the way up the Weardale Railway to Stanhope on a Steam Dreams tour.

“The train was stabled overnight at Stanhope station, coaled and watered and made ready for a 9.30am departure the next day,” says John. “Unfortunately, the weather was atrocious with heavy rain, which made it difficult for the passengers to appreciate the wonderful scenery Weardale has to offer.”

In the past week or so, Bishop Auckland has once again resounded to the sound of the A4s as they steam through on their way to Shildon for The Great Goodbye, which lasts until next Sunday.

AFOOTNOTE to last week’s article in which Darlington Telegraph journalist James Clemmet visited Durham one summer’s day in 1859 to write a travelogue and found John Shafto Wilthew in court, charged with murdering his wife, Susannah. They had been married 30 years and had at least 11 children between them, but drink seems to have dulled Wilthew’s senses.

On July 19, 1859, in their rented house near Jarrow station, he slashed Susannah’s throat with a razor as she lay asleep with their teenage daughter beside her.

She survived long enough to stumble outside for help, but her last words were: “Oh, Dr Saunders, I did not deserve this.”

The Northern Echo:
Action from The Northern Echo of Crook’s 10-1 thrashing of Hitchin Town in 1954 – the Hitchin supporters were brought to Crook by an A4

There was no local sympathy for Wilthew, who had tried to kill himself also. Journalist Clemmet witnessed him being sentenced to death, and he was hanged at Durham jail on August 11, 1859 – seven weeks after committing his crime.