[clive BRretired]

Is it possible to write tongue in cheek? I don’t suggest how heritage suck eggs! They do a good responsible job, But light engine movements would rarely spit sparks to trackside! But years ago and a heavy train, 5 or so mile to our destination, And I would (very rarely) bellow in drivers ear, Ive a bit much fire! (On the shed pits i would have to clean this engines firebox amongst other stuff)! He would wind it up to increase the inlet stroke and reproduce the 4th of July and Guy Fawkes night in one hit! Dampers open and fire door shut for its smokebox to demand air from the firebars! We were going ‘Back to the future’ 40 years before the film come out! Crap grey steam coal of all sizes! Dusty grey and dull, Not like the shiny graded fast ‘burn like paper’ stuff! Sometimes just dust! But late 50s they would compress that dust into fist size lumps we called donkey b******s! The shiny stuff simply burnt like paper! Expensive! On Midland Bristol Barrow road shed a black person would come aboard as you run on to pits to do all the pit work, Me and driver set off for the long walk to Bath road shed to sign off! But you could quite happily move heavy Merchant Navy types on 72A with half its steam pressure, Doors open, dampers shut and light handed on any blower? Light engine movement is simply a long shunt? My hays, If you want a proper fire blast then stand on the footplate of a Z eight drive wheel toasting the tunnel bricks on a St David’s banker!! Nuclear reactor, Eat your heart out! Ive wrote too much again! Reply shouldn’t be this long? But the golf doesn’t start till 8pm? I missed a good Nunney Castle on the Riviera express yesterday as it was deemed a possible fire risk!😕