We were delighted to welcome Geoff Holland to the Darlington Locomotive Works recently. Geoff kindly donated an original Stones lamp for the rear of No. 2007’s tender. Received with thanks from Steve Wood and now safely in the stores under his care.  Although Prince of Wales will be fitted with multi-function headlamps on the front buffer plank, the tender will follow the same design as Tornado’s with the Stones lamp bodies housing Rob Morland’s ingenious LED internals.  Needless to say, if anyone else has any of these lamps we’d love to hear from you!

In addition Geoff Pethick kindly wrote to us as follows, “My great uncle Edward 'Teddy' Windle was one of the team that went to Vitry in France with Cock of the North in 1934/5. After his death I was given two passes he was given by French Railways for use on the trip. Would you like them?”

Needless to say we were more than happy to find a home for the passes and they are now framed and on display at DLW2.  From 1935 Edward Windle was one of Gresley’s Chief Draughtsmen which Tom Coleman, the LMS`s talented CD, later referred to as Chief Designers, and this seems a far more accurate description of the work they did.  More often than not, they took some very broad ideas and developed them to the point at which an advanced fully working locomotive was built.  Responsible for work on Gresley’s superb Pacifics, he was also credited with the design work on the V2 monobloc.  He accompanied Oliver Bulleid to France with the P2 and was brought back as CD to Arthur Peppercorn and did much of the design on the latter’s Class A1 4-6-2s, allegedly covering up the drawings whenever Edward Thompson was in the room!