Andrew Martin: The Blackpool Highflyer

Of course, he had to crack on while the train was at a stand, for the rattlers had no corridors. We were to go to Blackpool express – without a booked stop, that is – but Lowther would be up and down whenever the signals checked us, clambering into compartments and asking for the tickets with his Scotland Yard air and a face like yesterday.

It was unusual to have an inspector on an excursion train, I thought, taking another look at the fire. An excursion was meant to be fun.

It was now eight-fourteen.

Clive climbed up next to me, and began looking in the soft leather book in which he would copy from the working timetable the details of any turn. It was all part of his exquisite ways, like not being able to stand coal dust on the footplate. Down along the platform Reuben Booth was untangling the green flag from the shoulder strap of his satchel, and trying not to bring his hat off while he was about it. Superannuation seemed to have passed Reuben by. He was very old, and very slow, which a fellow was allowed to be if he'd had a hand in the building of the viaducts from Settle to Carlisle, where as many men had died as in a medium-sized empire war.

Steam pressure was climbing, and number 1418 was near blowing off, ardent to be away. Little ghosts of steam flew fast towards Reuben.

The starter signal came off with the bang, but just as Clive reached with his gloved hand for the shining regulator, there came a noise from the platform. Chucking down my shovel, I looked out. Two of the excursionists – two blokes – had run across to the machine that gave cream biscuits. This was the usual sort of carry-on. I'd seen an excursionist miss his train back from Blackpool Central because he was monkeying about with a 'Try Your Weight' machine. Reuben was frowning at them slowly, while Lowther took the chance to leap down from one compartment and belt along to another, like a little black bomb. The two blokes at the machine were called back by some of their pals on the train: 'Give over, you silly buggers!'

They climbed up again; Reuben waved his flag, and climbed into his guard's compartment. Clive opened the cylinder cocks and pulled the regulator not more than a quarter of an inch. The exhaust beats began, each one a wrench at first.

'That cream-biscuit machine doesn't work, does it?' I shouted over to Clive as we rolled away.

'Shouldn't do,' he called back, frowning. 'Never has done so far.'

And we stood there grinning as the steam surrounded us.

We came out from under the platform glass and the gleam on the regulator doubled all in a moment.

In winter in Halifax, the smoke and sky were one, but on a good day in summer the sky was the sky and the smoke was the smoke – and every day was a good day for weather in that summer of 1905.

We crawled down the bank from the Joint. Below, and sometimes to the side of us, and sometimes going over our heads on bridges, was the Halifax Branch Canal. The light was coming and going as we clattered along that groove, under the towering mill walls. Then it went clean out as we rumbled through Milner Royd Tunnel, with all the strange screams of the excursionists.

We came out of that tunnel with the sun full on us, and Clive began notching us up while pushing his hair back. 'Special train!' he yelled, as the first kick of speed came.

Well, all our trains were special trains.

When I'd first started as his mate, Clive was on local goods. That was back in March, but come April we'd been made the excursion link, starting with a run to Aintree for the Grand National, and after that trip all sorts came along: Sunday School outings, club beanos, flower viewings, scenic cruises, at least a dozen Blackpool runs. And that with the holiday time barely started.

We would often work an excursion to some pleasant spot, then come back 'on the cushions', meaning we would use our footplate passes to return on any Lanky train in our own time, so then, of course, we'd scrub up in an engine men's mess and go out for a glass.

It wasn't all honey, for there'd still be ordinary passenger turns in between, and we'd often be put to working the branch from the village of Rishworth to Halifax Joint, which had no fixed crew. I said to Clive that this was our bread and butter, and he said 'our bloody penance, more like', for it was dull work. It was not above a couple of miles between the two places, and although all of Rishworth wanted to be in Halifax, Halifax didn't seem to want Rishworth, and we whiled away half our time on those turns waiting at signals outside the Joint.

On the crawl down from the Joint we had been going south, but we were heading west now, and the Sowerby Bridge Engine Shed – our shed – was coming up. Clive gave two screams on the whistle for swank and, Sowerby Bridge being a small place, the whole town would have had the benefit. Clive wasn't known for scorching: instead, he would put up smooth running, sparing of coal. But he was sure to have a gallop with 1418.

We were tolerably quick through the little town of Hebden Bridge, and on the climb up towards Todmorden, which was a slog with many an engine, the Highflyer had us fretting about the speed restriction. Here a lot of churches went racing past, and for some reason I had it in mind to lean out and look for the church-tower clock that had the gaslit face at night. Clive banged open the fire door and grinned at me: his way of saying that if I had quite finished daydreaming he wanted a bit more on. Chillier sorts would have done it very differently, but Clive would put a fellow straight in a mannerly way.

'What's up?' he shouted, as I caught up the shovel once again.

'Looking out for a clock!' I called back.

'It's coming up to quarter to!' shouted Clive.

Like all fellows of the right sort he never wore a watch and always knew the time.

'I just wanted to see it!' I said. 'It's lit by gas.'

'Advertising, that is!' said Clive. He was notching up once more, and things were getting pretty lively now. We were running down to Rose Grove, and I had to move about just to keep still, if you take my meaning.

'Sometimes,' I shouted, throwing coal and feeling the sweat start to spring out of me, 'you can see more at night than you can by day!'

What Clive made of this bit of philosophy I don't know because he was too busy finding his own feet and looking at his reflection in the engine-brake handle, trying to make out whether the hair restorer was working. I took off my jacket and laid it on the sandbox.

We were galloping past the black house that always had birds flying over it. That meant we'd crossed over from Yorkshire to Lancashire. Next came the schoolhouse on the hill, the one that always had the big cot in the window, which I didn't like to see because it made the place more like a gaol.

I looked at the sandbox, and saw that my coat had been shaken off by the motion of the Highflyer. This was the engine's famous roll.

Clive suddenly stood back and started moving his hands as if he was turning a wheel, and then bang – Clive had seen it before me – a motorcar was alongside of us on the road to Accrington. Clive was laughing. He opened 1418 up a bit more, but this motor was keeping up all right, though it looked to me like a giant baby-carriage. Just then the road snatched the car right up and away, but it came back hard alongside, and I saw the motorist – he might have been laughing, too, behind his goggles.

But then he started to get smaller.

'Eh up,' said Clive.

The car was jumping; the road went out and in again, and this time the motor was left behind us, still moving but only just, and shrinking by the second.

'What's up?' I yelled.

'He's changing gear!' shouted Clive.

Number 1418 steamed like a witch, but our exertions had made the fire a little thin in the middle, so I began patching, calling out: 'How's he doing now?'