Before the serious business of the day, Mrs. Thatcher enjoyed herself playing trains at the National Railway Museum.
She waved a green flag to signal a full scale replica of Rocket to come steaming into the museum, and them climbed onto the footplate.
Her first reference to the strike came when she glanced into the locomotive's tender, and said to the driver, Mr. John Bellwood: “I see you have got some.”
She looked over a huge locomotive which Britain had sold to the Chinese before the last war, and who had returned it as a gift for the museum. “It cost them £25,000 to buy, and us £26,000 in freight charges to bring it back,” she said.