The Blackpool Highflyer (2 page)

Clive called up, so I leant out the side and looked along the
platform. The clock said just gone five after, and we were due
off at nineteen past. We had eight flat-roofed rattlers on, one
with luggage van and guard's compartment built in. Most of
the excursionists were up by now, but a couple of pretty strag­glers were coming along carrying between them a tin bathtub
piled with blankets and food. 'You never do know when a tin
of black treacle isn't going to come in,' said Clive, and there
was
one, rolling about on top of the bathtub goods. Clive always
had an eye out for the damsels. In society you might have said
he was a rare one for the fair sex. At Sowerby Bridge Shed,
though, which was the shed for the Joint, they called him 'cunt
struck', and I believe he was the only engine man there not
married. He lived by himself in a village I didn't know the
name of, and came into the shed every morning on his bike.

'Going on all right, ladies?' he called out, and he began
smoothing back his hair. Never wore a cap, Clive; liked to give
his locks an airing. I knew that he used Bancroft's Hair Restorer,
but whether it was to stop going grey or bald I couldn't have
said. Even though he was only thirty-five
-
which made him
fourteen years older than me - both were happening to Clive,
but in such a way that a fellow looking at him would almost
wish to be a little on the grey and bald side himself.

Today he had on a blue suit that was different from the
common run of suiting for some reason I hadn't been able to
put a finger on, until he'd explained by saying, 'Poacher's
pockets', which was no explanation at all, really. Clive wore a
white shirt to drive in, where most settled for grey, and
leather gloves, which were very nearly kid gloves, and also
out of the common. He was a handsome fellow, I supposed,
but it was more a question of dash - that and the natty togs.

'Care for a turn on the engine?' he called to the doxies, and
pointed up at the footplate. They laughed but voted not to,
climbing up with their bathtub into one of the rattlers instead.
They both had very fetching hats, with one flower apiece, but
the prettiness of their faces made you think it was more. For
some reason they both wore white rosettes pinned to their
dresses.

I looked again at the clock: eight-eleven.

I ducked back inside and reached across to the locker for
my tea bottle
. . .
but I was vexed by the tin tub. They would
be tied together all day carrying it. And what was it’or? I took
a go on the tea bottle, then threw open the fire doors and
looked at the rolling white madness. Nothing wanted doing
there. The Highflyers had Belpaire boxes
-
practically fired
themselves.

I fell to wondering about the man who'd built these beasts.
The
Railway Magazine
would always tell you that Aspinall
had 'studied at Crewe under Ramsbottom', but would never
say who Ramsbottom was, and I imagined him as being left
behind, sulking like a camel at Crewe while Aspinall rose to
his present heights as Professor of Railway Engineering at
Liverpool University, and General Manager of the Lancashire
and Yorkshire Railway.

I wondered if he ever called it 'the Lanky', as we all did.

I stoppered the tea bottle, put it back in the locker. I
wanted to be away: to have the benefit of the Flyer in motion
-
they were said to have a special sort of roll to them
-
because otherwise I'd be nodding off, with the early start I'd
had and the heat from the sun already strong.

Down below on platform three our guard, Reuben Booth -
who was generally given to us on the Blackpool runs - was
saying to Clive: 'Five hundred and twelve souls, two hundred
and twenty tons'. Old Reuben would always give you the
number of passengers if he could, besides the tonnage of your
train, and with five hundred and twelve up, we were about
chock full.

Beyond him, over on platform one, I saw two men talking,
and it was like a little play. One was Martin Lowther, the
ticket inspector and a right misery. If anyone didn't have a
ticket, he took it personal, like. He was looking at his watch,
and the porter who was next to him across the way was
looking at
his.
It was a Leeds train that was due in there, I
reckoned, and Lowther was ardent to be on it. But as he
glanced across to our excursion train, the situation cracked,
and he broke off from giving slavver to the porter, and
headed towards the footbridge, leather pouch swinging
behind him. Next thing, he was coming down the steps onto
our platform.

'Eh up,' said Reuben, for he'd spotted Lowther by now,
and so had Clive. He was looking along the platform at him
as he came along, saying, 'I sometimes think that bastard's
going to ask
me
for
my
ticket.' Lowther
-
who was now peering
up through the windows of the carriages
-
lived at Hebden
Bridge, and would from time to time be sent down from Dis­tant Control at Low Moor. He had more gold on his coat and
hat than Napoleon. Otherwise, he just looked like a murderer,
with his black eyes and his big black beard. It would have
been a courtesy for him to come up to us and say he would
be riding on our train; instead he was climbing up into one
of the middle rattlers, roaring - and he
would
roar it out -
'All tickets must be shown!'

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.