A stirring sight as two Dukedogs set off from London Victoria on the RCTS Swindon & Highworth railtour of 25th April 1954.
A number of these engines had earlier been stored in Swindon's Stock Shed for some period of time when their services on the Welsh branch lines terminated , the majority thereafter unfortunately being scrapped. A few weeks earlier , however , in the March of that year, 9023 had been used on pilot duties over the South Devon banks between Plymouth North Road and Newton Abbot , but the "experiment" was short lived and I suspect that the local enginemen did not take too favourably to the use of this engine on such duties , with its exposed cab , open to all that the South Devon weather could throw at them.
I photographed 9023 on a very short three van " Express Parcels " leaving Plymouth almost certainly returning back to its home shed at Swindon at the end of its short period in the far West, but although I have not recorded the date it would have been just a week or so earlier than this image.