The
countryside outside had taken on a far bleaker outlook.
No more comfortable rolling fields and hedges, more open dark and
desolate windswept moor land broken very rarely with the odd light of a
crofter’s cottage in the distance. Three or four miles later we cleared the summit, the highest
point for a very long way. The
sudden silence of the engine dropping back to just idle speed being quite a
shock. Now it was time for the
driver to show his expertise with the brakes as we gathered speed rapidly down
the gradient. It was our turn to stop and wait a train going North at Glenwhilly
and after a few minutes a class 26 or 27 spluttered past and again we stopped at
the next block post on the line, New Luce, though I think it was for signals.
The last few miles took us on and we arrived in Stranraer where the platforms
had been crudely cleared to provide a walkway through the ankle deep snow.
Stranraer
station is on a causeway, jutting out into the sea. On one side there is the ferry terminal where the ships from
Ireland dock and on the other just an expanse of water known as Lock Ryan. I
doubt of more than a half dozen passengers (myself included) left the train, and
all of them (except myself) made for the ferry. It’s very open to the elements and tonight, even though the
snow had stopped and the wind had dropped considerably it was sub-zero.
40065 ran off its train and into the headshunt.
A hose from a hydrant was linked up and the second man set to refilling
the boiler water tanks. A class 27
soon appeared and dragged out the stock. Shortly
after, its watering complete, 40065 was away into the night, leaving the station
deserted and silent but for the sound of the dockside activity, the low moaning
howl of the airstrip, the clasping clank of cables stretching in the storm and
the whistle of the wind.
I
cast my mind back to the last time I had arrived at this deserted out of the
way, tail end of the Galloway Peninsular outpost.
It had been late summer 1964 – 10 years ago on an intense, weeklong
spotting bash of Scotland. That too
had been a journey on a boat train from Carlisle but had taken the old Port
road, the ‘Paddy’ line via Castle Douglas and Newton Stewart and had been
hauled by a BR Standard, Clan class pacific. The shed was over by the old,
long-closed Stranraer Town station and from where I stood I could see it was
still standing. Only instead of the
lines of near derelict engines that had been dragged in for store or withdrawn
as I long time ago remembered it, it now looked like a timber warehouse.
And similar to this evening I had left on a connecting train off the
ferry behind the same loco I had arrived but with a black 5 as pilot.
This was certainly the first time I had ever been here with a 40.
There
was little to do but to kill time by making the wet walk into the town through
deep puddles of black slush intent on getting something warm to eat.
Wherever I went to try and get anything smiles and a good word were
obviously not on the menu. I finally managed to track down a microwave pizza and
chips in a dour fish bar next to a back street café where a request for
anything to be ‘cooked’ was not even entertained.
At least a glass of good ale wasn’t as hard to find but a cheery
welcome was obviously a rare commodity. Stranraer
I decided was not one of the best places to visit and a lapse of about ten years
felt about long enough.
I
returned to the station about a couple of hours or so later. Good news was that despite the weather the inward ferry from
Larne was in sight and arriving on time so there shouldn’t be any delay to the
train – the previous arrival had been very late. The stock had been re-marshalled and much to my confusion the
two sleeping cars and the additional vans were at the rear of the train and not
the front as I expected. It looked like quite a load, so long the train the last
vehicles extending into the run-round loop. The class 27, which had been the station pilot, was at its
head being uncoupled after apparently steam heating the stock as some vestigial
wisps of steam were still to be seen. The
evocative noise of a 40 shunting about in the distance announced that though
40065 was nowhere to be seen it was still around somewhere.
The
27 spluttered off and 40065 backed on – looking every bit as rough, unkempt
and workstained as it did eighteen hours and 300 plus miles previously from the
platform at Doncaster when I had first saw her. As I stood watching her couple on the first of the few
passengers from the ferry started to flow out onto the train. The guard (who had
also come up on the 15.08 forward from Ayr saw me on the platform and asked if I
was going back already. I replied
by saying yes and that about two hours was about quite enough in Stranraer and
he laughed. He went on to ask where
I was going and did I know that we would be running into Glasgow tonight and
reversing there. The line from
Birassie to Kilmarnock was shut for engineering work. This news explaining why
the train was in reverse formation and at least gave me to opportunity of being
behind the loco for the majority (and by far the more interesting part) of the
return trip.
The
boat cannot have been over full that evening as I remember that by 21.30 only a
few passengers had boarded and it was a really strange feeling sat on the train
sat as we were on a causeway. The
business of a port at one side with floodlit ferries and huge craned and lorries
parked by the quayside, nothing but black water on the other and the only real
sound was from 40065. Come 22.00
the last open doors were slammed shut and we were give the tip.
As
we curved off from the station, the engine just taking the weight of the train
behind I had chance to count the carriages.
Load 12, perhaps 13. Quite a handful to say the least. And having run into Stranraer so effortlessly it was quite a
surprise to find out what a stagger it was going the other way, the rhythm,
pulse and noise from the locomotive building up considerably.
We were hard at it right from the start and even though the inward
working hadn’t been a piece of cake this time it was serious stuff.
We climbed solidly to the passing loop at New Luce, slowed to about five
mph through the station and for the next three miles at 1 in 57 that was it. Like a gigantic control being turned to maximum the volume of
noise hit new highs. The engine
flailed in fantastic crescendo of sound. I
doubt if I had ever heard a locomotive worked so hard before let alone witness
it from so near as the front window barley a few feet away.
Had someone have told me that an engine could produce such an awesome din
I would not have believed them. Smoke
blasting a good seven, eight foot above the top of the engine and cones of
yellow and red fire spitting out the roof. Complete thrash.
Utter hammer. No holds
barred. I was spellbound. If it had
been amazing so far this was stunning. We
milled away, engine thumping at the sky, The exhaust rattling like machine gun
fire as we stormed onward. I say
stormed – I don’t think we gained any real speed at all. Despite all the
effort, all the force, all the energy 40065 could muster it took the lot just to
keep her head above water. The carriages behind twisting, turning, snaking away.
So severe the curves the last vehicle almost turning back on ourselves.
Through the inky black star specked ice space of night we hammered and
hammered at what felt like no more than walking pace.
As
soon as the worse of gradient eased the engine noise quickened and we speeded up
significantly ready for the next few miles at less steep a climb.
Compared to the progress earlier the pace we ascended the next five miles
up to the summit at milepost 16 was far less pedestrian though there was
certainly no let up in the way the engine was being flogged. The raging timpani
of the engines sound flooding back. The
rooftop flames were now joined by liberal blazing, white hot stair rod sparks
which shot skyward and rained down like roman candles.
I began to fear for the health of the locomotive – surely it couldn’t
stand thrashing like this for much longer.
Then
we laboured over the top and the silence as the engine shut off was incredible.
It was like entering a vacuum. The last eight miles had taken more than thirty
minutes. The struggle Herculean. My
ears were singing. The smell of heat and hot oil from the engine drifting back
in the slipstream of air as we gathered pace downhill through the freezing night
air. Rail joints could be heard
speeding up under the wheels. The worse was over – or so I thought.
We
ran downhill to the next crossing loop at as probably best line speed we could.
The weight of the train behind bumping and pushing us against the liberal
applications of brakes to keep our speed down, particularly round the curves.
It felt far faster than no doubt it was my conceptions of our progress
based on the last half-hour. It
should be plain sailing from now on.
It’s
strange though how sometimes fate deals you a cruel blow. As we drifted into Pinwherry there was a string of lights
ahead of us through the old station. We
stopped briefly and ran at walking pace forward passing a five-mph restriction
board. In the worse, the very worse places you could imagine there was a PW
slow, no longer than our train length. We passed a number of well-wrapped
workers their faces bleached white in the blinding arc light brightness made
even more brilliant by the snow. We
drew slowly passed the T board marking the end of engineering work and, on the
cruellest of reverse curves, on a 1 in 65 gradient with no impetus to speak of
we tried to pull away. With a
racket from the engine hitting full power we slipped.
With a bang and a crack the engine noise dropped then howled back to life
once more. The wheels span again
and again. Not only were we not
pulling away we were slowing down as the gradient and the flanges of the curve
tight against the wheels of the train started to hold us back.
We were in trouble.
I
cannot remember us actually stopping. Not
really to a stand. But our progress
was truly now inches per minute rather than miles per hour as the driver
struggled to get us away. The order
of events was robotic – Momentary full power, right back before the wheels
whirled round and then the same again. All
accomplished within seconds of each other.
In this way we could have only travelled no more than a couple of coach
lengths but it must have just been enough to have got us off the worse of the
curve because the spells of full power were getting longer before the driver was
shutting off again. And then, as if
drawing on some hitherto unleashed reserve of strength, pulling from the very
depths of whatever 40065 could produce we caught hold of the train.
In a magnificent example of artisan driving the engine shuddered and
pounded away, whenever the slightest hint of loss of adhesion threatening
controlled perfectly by the driver. The
thumping of the engine increasing in pitch and sound as we fought our way
forward. Once we started to increase speed the worst was obviously over and with
the cracking cacophony of an English Electric 16SVT engine echoing away we
soared the next few miles at what felt like fantastic speed. No field divert to
change the tone. No untoward fan
howls. Just the sound of a 40 as
hard at it as possible. We plunging
into the tunnel marking the summit at Pinmore with a noise so sold I felt it fit
to damage the brickwork and stove in the carriage windows. Unbelievable.
Once
over the top it was a drift down To Girvan where we paused where a class 47 on a
lightweight parcels train waiting for us to clear on the opposite platform and
we ran on to Ayr where there was a crew change. To the driver getting off it was
no doubt just a job; to me it had been an illustration of skill gained by
experience over years. Another set
of coaches, this time hauled by a 25 was stood by our side on an unknown
working. In charge of the new set
of men we ran like the wind right up to the suburbs of Glasgow.
I had expected us to continue into Central station for the loco to run
round but we stopped short on the Clyde Bridge. Despite it being the time of
night where yesterday was becoming today it was remarkably bright outside with
all the station lights and things and I took the opportunity while we were
stopped to walk down the nearly deserted train to be as near the front as
possible for the next section. The loco took a few minutes to reappear and when
it did drift past again I noticed the sides were very wet so I think the boiler
tanks had been were topped up using the bodyside filling points.