The Beeb this morning carried a great story about a Deltic loco - which I remember hauling the Edinburgh London expresses at great speed in the 1970s - being called back into service to meet a boom in demand for railfreight.
It is good news that railfreight is booming - particularly as it is clearly switching trucks from the road. But only in the UK with its disastrous privatisation of rail (which remained basically unaddressed for 13 years under Labour) would the solution be to hire a preserved railway loco. It's a sign of how poorly the country's railways have been managed and how the separation of track, trains and infrastructure has meant long term planning has been neglected.
I recently blogged about how the state owned East Coast Trains had axed its dining cars - perhaps the recall of the Deltic means there's hope for a reintroduction of onboard dining - but hopefully it won't take 30 years.
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