Buses on Screen: The Money Programme (BBC financial magazine programme, 1966-)

Allan Haynes recalls "some time between 1976 and 1979, a road versus rail story. At that time Eastern Counties was regarded as being one of the best companies at doing outstationed services. We were expecting small saloons to be involved - but we turned up at Methwold, near Thetford at 0630 to find a Mark I Bristol VR parked up at the petrol station. The driver walked from his house round the corner, opened up, and we did a tour of the villages lasting an hour at flat out speed, and had collected nearly a full load arriving into Thetford. That's the way to do it!
Other locations on this show included Campbells' Soups at Kings Lynn, who used to send everything by rail from their private siding, until BR decided to abandon wagon-load traffic, and half a day at the fabulous Whitemoor hump yard near March. The site is now a prison. As we were walking down the yard the brake operators in the cabin evidently missed one wagon. It went hurtling down the siding at about 30 mph into the back of a train of standing trucks. A terrific crash as it hit the first truck, the rear pair of wheels came a foot off the rails and lumps of coal went everywhere. Then it sat back on the track and nobody seemed to have noticed. They showed us the site where a bogie wagon had the points change underneath it and the bogies went down two different tracks with the body strung between them. It was hard luck on the lighting tower which stood between the tracks. For those who know about such things, the hump shunting locos in use at that time were 350HP Class 08s, fitted with mobile radios to talk to the controllers. We also filmed the re-opening of a passenger station, almost unheard of. This was Magdalen Road outside Kings Lynn (the name has since been changed). The Money Programme paid for the Silver Band to attend, as in days of yore, and had their own headboard made up for the Class 31 loco. (Wonder where that went?)"

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