It was a fine dry Monday evening when I reported for duty at Bury Motive Power Depot. I had been employed as a Passed Cleaner at Bury for about eighteen months and was now being rostered for a full week's work on the footplate on a regular basis instead of day to day. As I have told many times before during my working career, my preference for night work was well known. I was pleased to be rostered all week with Driver Arthur Tennant, our starting time being about 8.00pm. I had previously worked with various drivers on most jobs but the Bacup–Moston run had so far eluded me. When I arrived Arthur was standing at the window of the office booking on duty. Seeing me waiting there for my time card the time clerk passed it to me so I could book on. Arthur went to look at the late notices in the glass-fronted notice board. It was the driver's responsibility to look at these late notices warning him of any late or urgent permanent way engineering work being carried out along our route. When my mate had done this he said “OK, let's go”, so we made our way on foot to Bury Knowsley Street station to collect our train. We arrived in good time so decided to fill our brew cans in the porters’ room, then sit on a platform bench and wait for our train.
While waiting for our train to arrive I had time to ask my mate about our job for the night. Arthur went on to say this turn was a strange one and unusual because of having the same locomotive all week. He told me when our train arrives our first stop was at Bury East sidings to make up our train, then work to Moston sidings. When we get to Moston we unhook and go light engine to Newton Heath motive power depot; there we coal the locomotive, clean the fire and then turn the engine. We usually fill the tank with water just before we leave for the return trip in the morning to Burnley which we take as far as Bury. There we get relieved on arrival, go to the shed and book off.
We had been sitting there for about fifteen minutes when we heard the sound of a train hauled by No.42700, the original Horwich ‘Crab’ 2-6-0, which had a unique tender. The locomotive was based at Bury until the shed closed. The tender fitted to No.42700 had only one crew locker which ran almost the full width of the tender. The access to the coal space was through a large opening in the front of the tender, making it difficult to reach the coal on a long run.
