From the archive

100 YEARS AGO AUGUST 1924 Mass exodus THE Great Western Railway mechanics, with their wives and families, numbering in all 29,000, constituted the biggest excursion in the world when they entrained at Swindon recently for their annual holiday. Some 19,000 adults and 10,000 children were conveyed to Penzance, St Ives, Newquay, Torquay, Ilfracombe, Taunton, Weston-super-Mare, Weymouth, Bournemouth, Portsmouth, the Channel Islands, Worcester, Wolverhampton, Manchester, Birkenhead, Pembroke Dock, Swansea, Aberystwyth, with five train loads going to London. They were accommodated in 31 trains totalling 520 coaches. 50 YEARS AGO AUGUST 1974 Evaluation trials of HST THE prototype High Speed Train (HST) set of British Railways has now completed the first stage of its evaluation programme by running 100,000 miles in some nine months. This has included regular running at 125mph betweenYork…