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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]
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Comments:

Fantastic. Does Pat's son Thomas know about this yet???
You didn't mention anything about passengers... but then, who ever thought that steam trains were run for their benefit? ;^)

Posted by Robin Wilton on November 18, 2005 at 03:06 PM GMT #

Apparently we weren't insured to carry the public, so the only passengers were the other people sharing the day. Let Pat know! I've got loads more photos obviously!

Posted by Drew on November 18, 2005 at 04:16 PM GMT #

Hi. I just read your blurb about steam and you say [Hard work ] I was a fireman on the LMS cumbria area working on Black Fives, Superheated Ds. Tankers, main line and shunting with some of the finest drivers and nastiest you could imagine. We shoveled 3-4 ton of coal a day, watched the water level the fremans side of the track, washed down the footplate, time to fire again. Hard work? I never ever looked on it like that. I loved it. I could write a book about the daft and wonderful things we got up to but I don`t think any one would be interested. Nice to see your blog. Regards Al

Posted by Al Sowerby on November 08, 2006 at 01:24 PM GMT #

What a stunning piece of engineering..awesome!

I live in South Africa and we still have a number of Steam locos working..

Here is a link to a photo essay about the last 3 working class 19D locos in a factory..

http://www.thephotojournals.com/GeoffCronje/HelloDolly/HelloDolly_1.htm

Enjoy...gimme a shout if you need more info..

Geoff

Posted by Geoff on August 21, 2007 at 09:16 AM BST #

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