The old steam train drivers will tell you “An engine in steam is alive. There is no other way to describe it”. Having been a fireman in the steam days I would agree with them. However something happened that made me change my mind.
Back in the late sixties I had a permanent mate. One night we were booked on 11:45 pm South Gladstone shunt. Our loco was 1273. We duly signed on and took our loco down to the board. One of the shunters came to the points and called us on the radio to come into traffic. He got on and we proceeded to the station. There was a bit of a break while the shunters worked out their moves.
My mate and I used to take turns on the floor. You know what that means. One would sleep while the other worked. The shunters knew not to give signals on the fireman’s side. All the shunting was done by radio as the trains were so long. My mate said “Your turn on the floor.” I needed no persuading. So down I go.
We start shunting. Then something strange happens. I am still wide awake. I become the locomotive. I could feel all the vibrations, the tremendous power of each stroke, the con-rods flexing. First contracting and then expanding. I could feel the brake blocks on the wheels. The metal ripping from them as the brakes were applied. What’s more I knew every shunting move we did and what roads we were in. Fair enough I could get that from the radio. This went on for about two hours. I can’t explain what happened. I am just relating an experience. We went and had a cup of tea in the shunters dining room after this.
I never told another sole about this until now, for fear of ridicule. The only reason I am doing it now is because I am aging and this will be lost forever once I am gone. Others may have had similar experiences. Also it has bearing on what I am about to say. Ever after this I had a different appreciation for the machines I drove.
It was said of me “If Bill can’t fix it, no one can”, so to another story. This type of thing happened quite often. One day we changed on the road with Bluff drivers. They told us all the trouble that they had had with it. My turn to drive so, after the change I sit in the driver’s seat. After getting settled I checked the signal, I said to my mate “We have a green light. Are you right to go”? He replied after checking the signal “Ok! Let’s go”. I released the brakes, patted the loco on the desk and said “Come on old girl. Let’s get home. You can have a spell then”.
Perhaps it should be pointed out that this was a distributed power train. There were four locos in two places, two on the lead and two in the middle of the train. The faults were said to be occurring on different locos throughout the train. All faults had been reset prior to taking over the train.
Well those locos performed perfectly for us for the entire trip. After two hours I handed over to my partner. Another two hours saw us arriving at Callemondah. We handed over the train to the local driver for provisioning and unloading. During the hand over we spoke of all the problems others had experienced and said we had no problems with it. A day or so later I met up with the driver we had handed it over to. He told me you gave me a bomb. I didn’t even get out of the provisioning shed with it before it started playing up. All the faults it had before we had it were reoccurring.
This type of incident occurred throughout my railway career. One time we had a good run to Bluff, even though we were told that there had been CTC problems out on the track. While running into the Bluff yard we got a phone call from the network controller. He said that we were one of three trains that got all the way through to Bluff on green signals in the past 24 hours. I asked which one are we? He answered the middle one.
