• (Dig all day with no tea break)! Tea was so expensive back in 1800s! For fine China cups in large houses, So the Custom house at the bottom of this road was for the M7 steam engine! Some are still about? Restored / preserved somewhere? A 0-6-4 if memory serves. A couple of ones i fired were saved from the cutting torch? Their cabs quite small! I think the vertical reverser but maybe that was the Adams? I seem to remember the M7 had a larger wheel than Ivatts 2Mt? But i would take the 2Mt every time! A lovely engine that begged for many yarns Lol, But the M7 could move some when pushed! I was surprised at their pace! Verbal procrastination says Tea! Tea, made many rich! Large eight room houses built on those ships that floated the English channels estuary tides with the British tea humped up this 1-37 slope for its onward trip north (on the rail network)! So money does grow on tea trees, But too expensive for the men that dig the rail cuttings and as the alternative to the horse n cart! And Henry Ivatt would of got a stronger beverage in for his daughters wedding to his young apprentice Oliver Bulleid? My word, Gresley, Ivatt and Bulleid sit down for Sunday lunch? Wonder what the conversations about? (I hope this yarn on groups only? Because i only put a picture on tother site for twice as many ‘Likes’ as the people who bother to read this)??

      Michael Ashworth, Tedg4ozg and 2 others
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