The slow train to dawn

[venta]

Many years ago, my father construed for me the Latin phrase in loco parentis. With hindsight, I'm not sure his classical languages are all they're cracked up to be. I don't think it does mean "my father's an engine driver".

Yesterday I got up frighteningly early to deposit the family at Didcot. Not, as it might appear, some bizarre kind of punishment, but a chance to spend a day playing with the puffer trains at the Railway Centre there. In particular, Dad had dug out his boiler suit and donned it ready to learn how to drive a puffer train - an experience the mother and I had jointly purchased for his birthday.

The day started as all good days should - a mug of tea and a bacon sarnie - then one of the site's many volunteers took a small group of us off for a tour of the Centre. I've walked round it before, but when you equip your expedition with a person In The Know it suddenly gets more exciting. You can wander through all those 'no entrance' signs, prod him til he unlocks doors you want to go through, and ask him difficult questions.

The Centre was closed to the general public, so we wandered up and down the tracks, into the wet, oily inspection pits under the engines and in among the brilliant hiss of the oxyacetelene torches of the volunteers who'd disappeared into a loco's dismantled firebox. And got to play with all those levers and buttons you're supposed to leave alone. My secret fascination has always been rolling stock, so it was marvellous to be able to wander up and down corridors and carriages instead of the usual peering through the windows. I'm aware of safety improvements, modernisations, blah blah, but modern carriages never quite have the luxurious feel of the old-school wood-panelled, squashily-sofa'd second class compartments, with art deco lights, etched mirrors and framed photographs. I experimentally sat on various seats, and they're more comfortable than today's efforts, as well.

Trivia fans may also be interested to note that Didcot has got a small stretch of Brunel's broad gauge track and a loco to run up and down it. Okay, not an original - it's a gorgeous little replica called Fire Fly. It didn't come out to play yesterday, just stayed safe in the Transfer Shed (where goods are transferred from broad gauge wagons to normal narrow gauge wagons).

After an unexpectedly fantastic lamb shank dinner, our group hopped onto the train. Dad retired to the pointy end for the exciting part of the business. The mother and I puffed contentedly up and down the line in the carriage, chatting to various other guests and staff, while Dad did frantic shovelling duties keeping the little green tank engine[*] supplied with coal. His calculations are that it eats about 12 stone of coal in the few minutes it takes to puff from one end of Didcot's little straight line to the other.

I hopped off the train in order to take some photos once they let Dad loose on the controls; sadly the (lack of) lighting inside the cab made that a bit too tricky. I could still see the grin when he tugged on the chain to set off the steam whistle, though.

I think the overall attitude was best summed up by the Guard's remark as the day rounded off. "Off you get, ladies and gents, we've got to put it back in the toybox now". About half of the people there were a similar age to my dad, and had been given the railway experience day by offspring as a birthday gift. So it's obviously terribly passé, but I'd recommend it as a present for anyone who's at all trainily inclined. Because deep down, who doesn't want to drive a steam engine?

[*] GWR No. 4144 and, I think, 2-6-2 in case you're that sort of reader.

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I don't think it does mean "my father's an engine driver".

Indeed not, it translates as "being a parent makes you crazy".