For December, we turn the clock back to 1954, the year when the Daily Ice Cream Co. issued a series of 24 Modern British Locomotives. This was six years after the railway system had been nationalised and a programme of modernisation was slowly beginning to take shape after decades of low investment and a damaging war. We learn from card no. 23 that two prototype diesel-electric locomotives were on trial hauling heavy express passenger trains between London and the West Country, while the powerful new Britannia class of steam locomotives (shown on card 13) had just been introduced. In fact, all but three of the subjects are steam engines, some, such as Royal Scot, King John and Barry Castle, dating back to the 1920's, others, notably the County and Merchant Navy classes, being more modern. And, we see Mallard, possibly the best known of all locomotives on account of its 126 m.p.h. world record for steam traction in 1938, which, at the time these full colour cards were issued, was hauling passenger expresses between Kings Cross and Newcastle, having recently been 'equipped for automatic train control,' we are told. This is a "truly excellent set" with detailed descriptions on the backs.