Brief Overview
IMLEC 1980 took place at the Bedford Society's track, which was in the grounds of a country pub (The Rose). The Bristol dynamometer was loaned for the competition and a coach load of 56 Bristol members also made the trip up to support their entry.
Percy Wood won his second IMLEC, this time driving his 3 1/2 in gauge Britannia "Laurie Earl". Laurie Lawrence provides more details:
"Run 11 The Winner. This Britannia is a bit long in the tooth, although only completed, so Percy Wood said, the night before the Competition, he had started building it back in 1951. Percy had made several other jobs in between and the Britannia has had track trials at various times in the past year. The locomotive was a private entry; Percy is a member of Chingford M.E.C. and was not selected to represent his Club, but he felt he could represent the "geriatrics" which he did quite well!! Load for the run was 5 people, which was perhaps a little under the capacity of a Britannia but Percy had assessed the conditions very cannily and was proved right. The locomotive slipped quite a bit especially on the Clubhouse curve and speed was held down to around 6.5 m.p.h. Boiler pressure seemed to vary quite a bit and one or two laps were rather slow, in fact, average speed for the whole run was a little over 5.5 m.p.h. As might be expected, Percy handled his Britannia very carefully keeping complete control even during the periods of slipping and he was well pleased when the results board was adjusted to put his entry at the top. And there he stayed for the rest of the day."
Interesting Facts
This was the second time a 3 1/2 in gauge locomotive had won the competition and the second time a member of Chingford had won (although Percy was a private entry).
During run No.1 (John Aitken - 57XX), the train became detached from the dynamometer car. This was quickly rectified and the run finished without further incident.