“A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS…”
I started my working life at Workington shed (11B, later 12D) in 1952 as an engine cleaner and retired at Crewe North 44 years later as a driver…the day after I drove preserved ‘Coronation’ class 4-6-2 No. 6229 Duchess of Hamilton on the northbound ‘Royal Scot’ in 1996. However, footplate life was not always easy.
I remember an occasion when I was on loan to Bletchley shed (1E). A down Blackpool express had called at the station with ‘Royal Scot’ class ‘7P’ 4-6-0 No. 46151 The Royal Horse Guardsman. When he started away, the driver forgot to open the cylinder drain cocks. There was one hell of a bang and the driver’s side connecting rod buckled like a dog’s hind leg, but the cylinder end was OK. He failed the locomotive and got dragged on to the shed. The express went forward with a grimy Bletchley-based ‘Class 5’ and a BR tank locomotive assisting, and a main line run to Crewe for a Bletchley driver.
You must be ever-vigilant, more so now when crews have had little steam experience. And in most cases the present-day conductor driver would only have driven diesel units, so would be less knowledgeable about changes in the track gradient. A driver suddenly confronted with a severe change, with low water in the glass, like coming down Shap and having to brake hard at Scout Green for signals, things could be dodgy.
Other places I could think of are Monument Lane tunnel into Birmingham New Street and down to River Side (Edge Hill to Riverside Docks). If you had a ‘Scot’ on the train, you had to keep the water about one inch above the bottom of the glass when coming back tender-first; any more
