Just like when I was a lad

May 24, 2024

As a small boy I loved to go and watch trains – real trains you know, the type that went chuff chuff chuff.

I’m not certain that I ever actually wanted to be an engine driver and certainly not a fireman, (far too much like hard work!) nevertheless there was a certain magic about railway engines in those days.

I was brought up living quite near the city of York and I can remember visiting the Railway Museum in the city, where there were lots of dusty old locomotives..

A special treat was to be taken to those storage hangers, quite near the present railway station and to be allowed to climb on to the actual footplates and explore.

Health and safety?? No, nothing like that. Of course the engines were disabled and the fire in the firebox had long since gone out, so there was no danger of moving the contraptions. But you could clamber about on them, sit in the driver’s seat and lean out of his special window, just like the real thing. Quite a special place to go on a rainy Saturday afternoon. My Dad enjoyed accompanying me because he could sit, enjoy a cup of railway tea (powerful stuff it was) smoke his cigarette and exchange stories with the retired drivers who always seemed to hang around.

Visiting the museum again this week I was struck by how much more sophisticated it has become… stewards…security staff…volunteers, who could explain the working and the history of the magnificent shiny engines that you were allowed to view…ie look at.

Some locomotives were even guarded by white railings. To be fair I think there was access to the footplate of Mallard, the record breaking steam engine, but there was a flight of steps up the outside, a viewing platform and a queue to actually get on to the footplate..

The specimens were immaculately turned out (although I noticed that the Duchess of Hamilton – that’s the Maroon coloured Coronation class engine standing next to Mallard – looked a little dusty on the top).

Even so it was a wonderful opportunity to see railway engines and carriages from the earliest days of steam to the sleek trains that thunder through the Channel Tunnel.