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20051118 Friday November 18, 2005

 Driving a steam train...

Well, if you were following my blog last week you'll remember I had been given an early Christmas present; a day driving Steam Trains up and down the famous 'Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch' Line.

We got there for 8:30am on a cold and frosty morning. Firelighters had already been there for two hours, preparing the engine for work. Takes a long time to boil hundreds gallons of water!

Here is our engine, Typhoon. In railway nomenclature it's a 4-6-2. It weighs 6 tonnes, and the tender (coal and water) is a further 2. We were pulling 8 coaches, 2 tonnes a piece. Takes a whole train length to stop. The engine is putting about 100 horsepower.



And here is yours truely, waiting for 'a road'. It's incredibly hard work. You're monitoring 4 main gauges, boiler pressure (around 150 pounds per square inch), steam chest pressure (how much steam pressure in the driving cylinders), water levels (too little the boiler explodes, too much and you aren't moving for 30 minutes) and brake pressure (all vacuum driven).

You're shoveling coal like there is no tomorrow and trying to keep an eye on where you are going. Driving isn't a case of pull the throttle (regulator as its known) and off you go. You've got to balance another control (cut-off) between traction and steam usage. It's pretty overwhelming!



It's pretty hard to see where you are going on a steam train, keeping an eye out for hazards (which included two errant sheep on our journey) along with signals etc is quite hard work, as this view from the drivers eye shows...



The trains are 1/3 scale, which means that top whack is about 25mph, a scale speed of 75. It feels much faster than that, particularly when you are leaning out of the cab trying to get a funky shot whilst moving along...



We had a beautiful, if cold day, frequent stops and refreshments throughout. I have to say I now have enormous respect for those crews who ran services from London to Edinburgh non-stop in all weathers. Hard work doesn't even approach it. I'm now an honoury member of the 'Romney Regulators', though I might not mention that in all my social circles! ;-) Great fun though, and if you like steam, nostalgia and engineering, thoroughly recommended! There isn't much in life that beats being at the controls of an express steam train, flat out down a main line.

The railway's website is here - One quick factoid, it is the only steam railway in the world that still runs scheduled services and has done without interruption since the day it opened, including throughout the second world war.

( Nov 18 2005, 11:08:51 AM GMT / Nov 18 2005, 10:56:08 AM GMT ) Permalink Comments [4]
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/driving_a_steam_train


Yep, me.
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