Railway surprise for Pete

Pop guru Pete Waterman found himself performing a ceremony in Staffordshire he never thought would be on the cards when he had passed through Stafford last week.

Pete, who has the largest privately-owned rail maintenance business in the UK, was the star guest at Stafford Railway Circle's annual exhibition at the weekend. As he had travelled through at the height of the snow problems last week he had thought to himself "No show."

On the day Pete, a former footplateman at Wolverhampton, admitted "You can't stop a good railway supporter."

But organisers had to battle to get all but two of the 29 planned tracks up and running for the two-day event.

Exhibition manager Terry Robinson said that in spite of the problems during the week with the bad weather the crowds poured in on the opening day.

"We had about 2,000 through the gates by lunchtime and were well on target for the crowd of between 4,500 and 5,000 that we expected for the weekend," he said.

"The opening was absolutely fantastic and Pete is a great bloke. He stopped round after the opening to sign copies of his book A Train is for Life. And people took advantage of the free bus shuttle between the showground and railway station. Neither a recession nor bad weather can deter a railway enthusiast."