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[Oddjob]

To explain why I drove all those locos some context might help.

My Dad joined BR in 1946 after coming home from WW2, he started as fireman and I still recall him coming home with a badge saying Passed Fireman which meant he could also drive trains as well as be a Fireman. He was always the type of person who looked out for others so it was natural for him to become the Shop Steward and eventually became Senior Shop Steward (he eventually became the NUR Trade Union Conference representative). When steam was being phased out he'd been there over 20 years and was well known and entrenched, being Senior Shop Steward allowed him to virtually do what he wanted when he wanted, so when BR announced they were doing a sort of travelling show of all the famous locos so the public could see them one last time he asked if I'd like to go, being a bit of a train spotter I of course jumped at the chance. One of the events was held at Edgeley Shed in Stockport, all the famous locos were there along with a lot of less known ones, all were fired so they were all "In Steam" as it was known. I got there and my Dad asked if I'd like to have a go driving Flying Scotsman, well who wouldn't. I'm not sure how old I was but at the time my growth spurt hadn't really kicked in so I was kinda short for my age. We went onto the footplate and by this time my Dad was an instructor on steam (he eventually became one of the test drivers for the High Speed tilting train) so he showed me which levers to pull etc and I moved Flying Scotsman down the line about 100 yards, the huge crowds there loved it as they saw it moving and they were cheering so much etc that the management said it was ok to move some of the others as well. So next was Mallard and then Britannia (which was only really included as it was available as a Hornby 00 train so everyone knew it) then I did a couple of others and finished off on Evening Star which was on a line by itself due to the 6 wheel arrangement, not well known but Evening Star and it's sister locos could only operate on certain lines, any line with a certain radius of curve and it couldn't get round the bend in the track. So Evening Star was on a line that didn't go into the shed due to the bends that those lines had. I can still remember the cheer when Evening Star moved, I was pulling down a large lever from the roof area that I seem to recall was called the Regulator, the further it came down the faster you went, brakes were another lever just in front of the drivers seat. In all I moved around 7 or maybe 8 trains that day, Oliver Cromwell wasn't one of them as Mallard was there (Sister trains of the same design, and yes AFAIK, it still holds the speed record), I drove Oliver Cromwell later just before it went out of service along with a few others I can't recall now but one was certainly Bahamas as it was based at my dads shed. Most were unnamed locos but I enjoyed them just the same. 

I remember asking my Dad if he was sad about steam going and he said no, they were horrible to work on, horrible to drive (imagine having to stick your head out of a window all night in winter whilst doing high speeds) they smelled and made you smell, dirty etc. I suppose those of us who didn't have to work them look through rose tinted glasses.

A few years later and I'm a bus conductor, I'm sitting at home one morning when my dad comes downstairs, sees me and asked what I'm doing that day. Nothing I said, so he asked if I'd like to go to London with him and drive an electric train, I asked how we'd get away with that and he said simple, go upstairs and put your bus uniform on, it looks almost the same as a BR one, a sort of heavy duty very dark blue/black twill, I had to remove all my badges etc but it certainly looked the part. He drove the train from Manchester Piccadilly and I boarded at Edgeley Station, it was a huge tractor unit, with the pantographs on the roof, it was also named but I can't remember what it was called now. Anyway, we set off and he showed me around the cab, it was quite an unpleasant motion I have to say, the cab is unsprung (or was back then, early 70's) so every bump in the track, every line joint was transmitted to the cab, it shook quite violently and the motion could cause sea sickness. It was impossible to have a full cup of tea for instance as it would spill everywhere. After Birmingham and as the line was running beside the M1 I was given a go, got to over 100mph and then I had to pull into a station, maybe Milton Keynes?  After the stop I was shown how to get it going again, just small movements of a lever in front of you, like the brake lever of a steam train TBH, there were alarms and switches all over, one dial showed what the last signal was showing, one my Dad called Tweety Bird as it whistled when you passed a signal and you had 3 secs to press a large button to stop the whistling or it would apply the brakes, another large steel button on the floor under the seat, you had to keep that pressed down all the time or the brakes came on, dead mans switch that one in case the driver died whilst driving. He told me of 3 people who had committed suicide whilst he was driving, they'd stand at the exit of a tunnel and just step out as the train exited, due to the change in the light at the time the driver was unable to spot them and was usually totally unaware they'd done it, told me he was driving one day when blood started to come up the windscreen from below, thinking he'd hit a cow (wasn't uncommon) he stopped the train and there were bits of a woman all over the front of the train. Another time he pulled into a station and people were fainting and being sick, there was a head shattered all over the front of the loco along with other various body parts. He claimed he was unaffected by it (WW2 vet so saw much worse he said) but other drivers left or were really affected by it. One arrival at Euston we were scheduled to come back passenger so the trip back was like chalk and cheese, smooth, ate a lovely meal and chatted to the train staff who all knew my dad. A great day out and a cracking experience.

So train driving looks kinda glamourous but I suppose like lots of jobs there are downsides to it as well.

[heli_madken]

Loved that ken, excellent story and I am wholeheartedly jealous. My Dad was a bus driver, best experience I had was moving an Leyland Atlantean bus about 10 foot so nothing compared to your adventures.

Is it true that if a train driver experiences 3 suicides they can take ill health retirement? not sure if this was something done in the past perhaps.

[SteveD CB500K0]

You should write a book Ken.


Oh, you did.




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[Rozabikes Tim]

You should write a book Ken.


Oh, you did.




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Is that the longest post ever on the site?

Excellent  read Ken.

They used to test the tilting train ATP? on the track north of Derby opposite where we lived. Fantastic bit of kit but unreliable? I think the same basic idea is used in the Hitachi built  Azuma trains. "Bloody Japs again "

[Johnny4428]

Great read Ken, thanks for sharing! (Pity about the body’s splattered on the front of the train 😢😢)

[Laverdaroo]

Now I havet spoken tp my brother n over ten years but I just sent hom that and he knew your Old Boys name and all the info from your shunting escapades. He ha it on fim and woll try to get me a copy down Ken.


WHAT a story, that was ace and vrought back osme memories, blimey.

Needless to say............yu jammy get!

[Laverdaroo]

Had a couple of replies back from a number of places spread across the UK saying that they can fettle the dent. Cheapest is £100, the dearest, get this..........£525.00.......I kid you not!


Thankyou for all the ideas and suggestions and the PM's. Heaps to go on now and haven't ruled out having a go myself yet.......

[Oddjob]

My Dads name was George but some knew him by Ernie as that was his middle name, his Dad had the exact same name so growing up they all called my Grandad George and my Dad Ernie, my Mum always called him Ernie. I remember asking him about the Tilting train and he said it would tilt on corners but sometimes it wouldn't come back up so the train needed to stop until they got it fixed. It's still around somewhere I believe, it was parked in Crewe for years.

Not sure about early retirement but could be true, he was eligible I suppose but unlike a lot of other people the sight didn't particularly bother him, at the end of WW2 he was helping the last British hangman Albert Pierrepoint to hang Japanese POWs who were convicted of war crimes, he was stationed in Changi prison in Singapore before being demobbed in 1946.

I've driven hundreds if not thousands of Leyland Atlanteans Ken, both the PD1 and PD2 types. When I passed my PSV back in 1976 there were very few front loaders as we called them, I found a couple of pics on the web with me in them, one is me driving but you can't really see me but the conductor was my old guard Bob and the other is me as a conductor. Both were Leyland Atlanteans in the pics.

After my Mum died in 2007 my Dad suddenly opened up about his war years. Before that he didn't refuse to talk but he wouldn't say much about it, I didn't for instance know he was in the 2nd Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry until 2008, we were watching World at War on TV one day and it was a clip of Pathe news I think that they'd show in cinemas back in the UK, the type with a jolly upbeat commentary like "Here's our gallant lads crossing the Rawapindi" for instance. We were watching that crossing and out of the blue he says "Wasn't like that at all" I said what wasn't. "That crossing" he said, I asked how he knew and he said he been there, just then the troops passed in front of the camera and bugger me there's my Dad, he was pointing out all his mates and what happened to them, stuff like Chalky White, got killed by a land mine, Sid, got blown up by artillery etc. The stories he told me after that were shocking, I remember looking at him and thinking I didn't know him at all, he was shot 3 times by a Jap machine gun he told me, now I've been swimming with my Dad loads of times and I knew what a bullet hole looked like as my Great Uncle was in WW1 and he showed me his bullet holes and they are unique, you can't mistake them. When I said that he lifted up his shirt and bugger me there's one, a through and through just at the edge of the torso, another one in his arm and one he wouldn't show me as it was in "A delicate area"

Roo I'd love to see that vid if you can find it. Doubt it would be the Edgeley Shed event though, most likely a Yorkshire one as it was a country wide event and travelled around.


Steve, that comment made me laugh. I wasn't aware it was so long.

[Laverdaroo]

We're on it mate,

I laughed at steves dig too, perfect timing

[heli_madken]

After my Mum died in 2007 my Dad suddenly opened up about his war years.

Had exactly the same experience with my Dad, he was in the Seaforth Highlanders and only talked about his experiences really just a few months before he died.

Except one Sunday afternoon in the 70's we were watching a programme called 'All our Yesterdays' when he suddenly shouted thats me! he had been filmed supposedly in Belgium somewhere in the early years of the war but in actual fact the footage was staged in France after the war had finished. Wish I could find the clip, he was dressed in a Kilt holding a revolver looking around a corner.

I think those that saw terrible things just did not want to talk about it, there was of course no support in any way for men like him after the war.