Driving through the changes on the ECML

IT WAS the 1970s and life was fun for Michael Ingledew as a teenager in Newcastle, experiencing new trends such as discos, with the inevitable trip to the pub.

However, something was missing, as Mick explains: “I started working in local government at Newcastle City Council’s Saxon House offices as a clerical officer in 1977. It was a job with prospects and one where I was already training for my first step up, but I had a growing realisation that life stuck in an office was not for me.

“I had a great group of friends, one of which was a girl called Judy whose dad, Gordon Charlton, happened to be a train driver at Gateshead. Gordon asked me had I ever thought of applying to be traction trainee, but I hadn’t.

Key moment

“Nevertheless, within a few days Gordon had brought back the application forms. After leaving it for a few days and on being questioned by Gordon, I eventually filled the forms in and off they went to a Mr E N Clarke at Newcastle Central station.”

Within days of submitting the application Mick was summoned to a job interview for traction trainee. He hadn’t a clue what the job might entail and thought it best if he went along to Central station and get more of an idea beforehand. It was soon after getting to the station that the sight and sound of 3,300hp in the form of a ‘Deltic’ arrived. This was the first key moment for Mick.

“When the ‘Deltic’ arrived I was able to pinpoint a sound I’d been hearing when I was at work in Saxon House, near Heaton station. Straight away the presence of the locomotive and its train caused me to think ‘this is for me’,” he said.

It was a feeling that was cemented within days as Mick was invited by Gordon to join him on the footplate for a shift to see what the job was like. From methods of working, favours given and favours accepted, and the general railway infrastructure, Mick managed to grab an inkling of knowledge he hoped would help him at the pending job interview.

“I was interviewed in a cabin on platform 8. A man called Jimmy Scope led the questions, beginning with ‘How do you wire a three-pin plug?’, followed by ‘How do you get to work for 3am?’ and ‘When can you start?’. There were many more in-depth questions, together with some tests too, with the result that I was offered a job.

“Consequently, I