More of Railway time

As time moved on we started to get a little higher in seniority. On the Railway you was promoted with time served only and when a driver retired then everybody moved up one. It was sad really as you was rostered with a Driver for so long then an old driver would retire and then you would move up one. I did have a couple of drivers that I was rostered with for about 6 months. One was a George **** known as trajedy. He was a lovely man, in his late 50s and intelligent. In the days when he joined you had to have a goog education to get in to the Railways. The proudest moment I had with him was when I think it was when sputnik was launched I guess around 1958. We were booked to bring a light engine back from Peterboro to Grantham. I said to George "We are going to watch sputnik travel the universe tonight George, I have the exact time and know where to look. It is going to be at 10.22pm". He looked at me, I just said "I will get enought steam up, just get speed up, I will make it as dark as I can, you then shut off the regulator and we will free wheel. It will work" Well by some miracle it did and we saw the light going from west to east. I think George thought I was clever but I was not. He had a son who was a Chief Inspector of Police in Bermuda. He told me that his son made him laugh when Hans and Lotte Hass were on T V. Black and White only. They were underwater film presenters. His son always called them Hans and Lot of Arse. They were popular though. Another driver was Billy **** I felt sorry for him as he had a fireman called Jackie **** . He went a little mad. Billy said to me the first time he met me, " I will never complain about you at all" I told him that he would never have any reason to, he then told me of some of the things he had to put up with Jackie. It was a shame. Eventually Jackie was dismissed because of health reasons, went to work on the council as a green card worker. Went roadsweeping and was killed sweeping the roads. A sad end to him. However Billy and I got on well together, each day feeling more confident that he at last had a reliable mate that he could trust. He could aslo have a dry sense of humor. We were on the regular High Dyke run with iron ore to Immingham and we used to change over with crews from Immingham at the half way, Burgh Le Marsh(Burgh) pronounce bourough. Most drivers knew the road to Louth though. Well this evening we changed over and we had this pig of a steam engine. It was well renowned for being a bad steamer. 63923 an O2. Well the fire was a disgrace, Billy looked at it and said, "We've no chance." I told Billy we would go as far as we could then we just had to stop. Anyway we limped to near Boston, Billy went to the signalbox and demanded he spoke to Control. They were the men in charge of running the lines. He cameback about 10 minutes later, I was cleaning the clinkers out of the firebox. He just said. " Take your time mate I told them what was up and all they asked me was if it was 63923, I said guess again and you are wrong, my mate is cleaning the fire out and we will get top Boston as soon as we can. Control said they understood and would wait for arrival at Boston." Needless to say, we made it to Boston and after further cleaning of the firebox,made it back to Grantham. Billy was happy and I was satisfied. Nothing was ever made of the incident, that was the way, if it was unavoidable and you did what you thought best, then all seemed to be O K.
The advent of diesel was soon upon us and the happy days of steam would soon be over, it was a sad day for all of us. I was made redundant with so many other firemen. I was offered a porters job at a small vliiage, a crossing keepers job in the country. I informed them that I thought I could find a much more rewarding job than what they were offering me. I was, however reinstated with many of my mates, but I saw that the writing was on the wall. I began to look for another job. In June 1964 I left the railway and went to work in a ladies fashion closing room( making uppers) as assistant to the manager, there were about 120 girls and women there. The last 2 weeks I worked on the railway was on steam but the prior 6 weeks it was all diesel. So now I was to go to work in a factory after being outdoors. To be continued.