Sorry. I’m not really a dog lover so this is not a real greyhound. In fact it is a steam railway locomotive.

It has featured on this blog before when I wrote about a special enthusiasts train I went on called The Sussex Coast Limited. The train made a photo stop at Guildford and I, a very inexperienced photographer back in 1962, grabbed this photo of the loco.

That kind of loco was known as a greyhound.

Officially it was class T9and had been designed by Dugald Drummond for express passenger work on the London and South Western Railway in 1899. They quickly gained a reputation for free running and speed – hence the nickname of greyhounds.

In 1962 when I took the photo above, this particular greyhound had been preserved as a part of the national collection of steam engines. It had been repainted to look more like it…