Black five at Arlesford

As everything has to be described in superlatives these days, it was the hottest September day since 2006. The car thermometer reached 29 deg C at times.

We dropped some friends in Southampton for the start of a cruise holiday and stopped at Arlesford on the way back.

The first steam locomotive we saw was this Stanier Class 5MT 4-6-0, know as a "black five", which had run in tender first light engine from Ropley. I think that it may have been a "driving experience" run. These locomotives were workhorses throughout much of the railway network and examples lasted until the last days of steam on British Railways.