LAST week bikes were high on the agenda with Reading’s transport leader unveiling the town’s new cycle rental scheme, Hourbike, but 50 years ago this week, train enthusiasts were all in a flurry over the arrival of a famous locomotive...

25 October, 1963 - Famous loco ‘flies’ again - “Cameras clicked, necks craned, excitement was intense.

Yet all one could see was a railway locomotive pulling through Reading Station.

It was this very locomotive that all the train spotters – young and old alike – had come to see.

For this was the famous Flying Scotsman, immortalised by railway enthusiasts as the first British locomotive to clock 100 miles per hour.

It passed through Reading on Saturday morning taking a trainload of railway enthusiasts to the West Country.

The famous engine, which was saved from the scrap heap by a Nottingham businessman, has been completely restored to its original L.N.E.R. appearance.”