The Blackpool Highflyer

Chapter Two

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.

It wasn't all honey, for there'd still be ordinary passenger turns in between, and we'd often be put to working the branch from the village of Rishworth to Halifax Joint, which had no fixed crew. I said to Clive that this was our bread and butter, and he said 'our bloody penance, more like', for it was dull work. It was not above a couple of miles between the two places, and although all of Rishworth wanted to be in Halifax, Halifax didn't seem to want Rishworth, and we whiled away half our time on those turns waiting at signals outside the Joint.

On the crawl down from the Joint we had been going south, but we were heading west now, and the Sowerby Bridge Engine Shed – our shed – was coming up. Clive gave two screams on the whistle for swank and, Sowerby Bridge being a small place, the whole town would have had the benefit. Clive wasn't known for scorching: instead, he would put up smooth running, sparing of coal. But he was sure to have a gallop with 1418.

We were tolerably quick through the little town of Hebden Bridge, and on the climb up towards Todmorden, which was a slog with many an engine, the Highflyer had us fretting about the speed restriction. Here a lot of churches went racing past, and for some reason I had it in mind to lean out and look for the church-tower clock that had the gaslit face at night. Clive banged open the fire door and grinned at me: his way of saying that if I had quite finished daydreaming he wanted a bit more on. Chillier sorts would have done it very differently, but Clive would put a fellow straight in a mannerly way.

'What's up?' he shouted, as I caught up the shovel once again.

'Looking out for a clock!' I called back.

'It's coming up to quarter to!' shouted Clive.

Like all fellows of the right sort he never wore a watch and always knew the time.

'I just wanted to see it!' I said. 'It's lit by gas.'

'Advertising, that is!' said Clive. He was notching up once more, and things were getting pretty lively now. We were running down to Rose Grove, and I had to move about just to keep still, if you take my meaning.

'Sometimes,' I shouted, throwing coal and feeling the sweat start to spring out of me, 'you can see more at night than you can by day!'

What Clive made of this bit of philosophy I don't know because he was too busy finding his own feet and looking at his reflection in the engine-brake handle, trying to make out whether the hair restorer was working. I took off my jacket and laid it on the sandbox.

We were galloping past the black house that always had birds flying over it. That meant we'd crossed over from Yorkshire to Lancashire. Next came the schoolhouse on the hill, the one that always had the big cot in the window, which I didn't like to see because it made the place more like a gaol.

I looked at the sandbox, and saw that my coat had been shaken off by the motion of the Highflyer. This was the engine's famous roll.

Clive suddenly stood back and started moving his hands as if he was turning a wheel, and then bang – Clive had seen it before me – a motorcar was alongside of us on the road to Accrington. Clive was laughing. He opened 1418 up a bit more, but this motor was keeping up all right, though it looked to me like a giant baby-carriage. Just then the road snatched the car right up and away, but it came back hard alongside, and I saw the motorist – he might have been laughing, too, behind his goggles.

But then he started to get smaller.

'Eh up,' said Clive.

The car was jumping; the road went out and in again, and this time the motor was left behind us, still moving but only just, and shrinking by the second.

'What's up?' I yelled.

'He's changing gear!' shouted Clive.

Number 1418 steamed like a witch, but our exertions had made the fire a little thin in the middle, so I began patching, calling out: 'How's he doing now?'

'Picking up the pace again,' yelled Clive, who was still hanging out the side, 'only trouble is… the bugger's on fire!'

We went into a cutting – a quick up and down – and when we came out we were beginning to lose the road. I put down my shovel and leant out to see the motorist and his smoking car spinning away backwards. Clive gave a happy shout and two screams on the whistle. He knew about motorcars but did not like them. He thought they wrecked all the fruit gardens of Halifax with their fumes. I told him I'd never seen a fruit garden in Halifax, wrecked or not.

Clive was still peering backwards along the length of the rattlers. 'They're falling out the windows!'

Folk would do that on an excursion – lean right out, and their hats would go flying. But with excitement at fever heat they never minded. Green and gold light was flashing about in our cab as we rattled around the Padiham Loop. It was a great lark, but 1418 was wearing me out – not from the amount of coal wanted, but from the need to keep braced against its rolling.

Clive turned to me and gave a big grin. He was a dapper dog. Nice necktie just crossed over, so you could never work out how it kept in place; coat not new but perfectly built… and the poacher's pockets. 'It pays a man to dress smart,' he would say; 'shabbiness is a false economy.' He once told me the best thing you can do with a pair of boots was not wear them.

We came through Blackburn and down the old East Lanes line into Preston station, which was all newly painted green and red and gold, like a Christmas tree in summer. A splash on the brakes, and here we came to a stand while waiting for a local goods to leave.

I heard a door bang from somewhere behind, and Lowther was climbing down to the platform, moving from one rattler to another in search of those without tickets, for he wanted to see those folk most particularly.

After checking the water level, I climbed down with the oil feeder in my hands, and put a jot in each of the links and glands, wiping away the tiniest little spillages, this being the Highflyer.

When I climbed up again, Reuben was on the footplate beside Clive. 'You two lads,' he said, in his shaky voice; 'You do know what we have on here… Don't you?'

Your mind would race as Reuben spoke. I was thinking: well, what do we have on at the end? A red lamp. That would be the usual thing.

'There's one First on,' said Reuben.

'A First?' said Clive, 'on an excursion?'

Excursions were all Thirds as a rule.

'And there's only two in it,' said Reuben.

'Two in the whole carriage?' said Clive.

Reuben nodded.

'But they'd have about, what, thirty seats each?' said Clive.

There was a bit of delay here, while Reuben thought it out: number of seats divided by number of passengers.

'That's what it tots up to,' he said, after a while.

'Who are these gentry?' I said.

'Owner of Hind's Mill,' said Reuben, 'and his old man.'

That was queer. Mill owners didn't go on mill excursions as a rule. I climbed down and ran along the platform for a look. The excursionists were leaning out of the six third-class rattlers, and some gave a cheer when they saw me, but it was nothing to what Clive would have got with his poacher's pockets and high-class necktie. When the Thirds ran out, I naturally slowed, for I had struck the luxury of space – four doors on the First, not eight, and wider windows, and those windows had curtains, not blinds, and every one of those curtains was closed, like four little theatres at which the performances had finished.

As I looked back towards the engine, I saw, beyond it, the starter signal go off. With many shouts of encouragement from the excursionists, I ran back, passing a small old lady on the platform whose black dress was out at the sides. I touched my cap to her as I ran and she smiled and said, 'They'll all see the sea today.'

But the old lady was wrong over that.