National Railway Museum

Rocket replica

A weekend near York for an extended family reunion provided the opportunity to visit the National Rail Museum at York. It is a fine facility and does much to generate tourism traffic for a city that is already well endowed with attractions from York Minster to the Viking centre, city walls and the shambles. York may lack scenery, located on the flat and frequently flooded Ouse, but it is well positioned on road and rail networks to attract visitors from most parts of the UK. It is a pity that the national museum was not located in Crewe, Doncaster, or Darlington all of which were formerly railway towns that would be more deserving and benefit more from rail tourism.

Nevertheless, it was chance to touch base with the steam locomotives and railway infrastructure that I spent three or four years inhaling between the ages of 9 and 13. I spent most Saturdays watching trains on the West Coast mainline and, during school holidays, I raided many engine sheds to cab locomotives and made visits to locomotive works in Horwich, Crewe, Gorton and Doncaster. My geography of the UK was largely gained by knowing travel times to towns on the rail network and my map reading skills honed by locating engine sheds. The names of the locomotives also provided most of my knowledge of countries, cities, Greek gods, kings and queens, castles and regiments along in each case with a 5 digit number.

There were lots of memories as I took my 3-year-old granddaughter onto the footplate of my favourite locomotive, a coronation class pacific - the Duchess of Hamilton (46229). She seemed interested and asked me how it worked; my impromptu description of being like a giant kettle on wheels was accepted but she knows how to humour me. It was the very same locomotive that my grandad had lifted me onto the footplate to be shown the controls by the friendly engine driver as it stopped at Preston whilst pulling a Glasgow bound express.

I was also 3 years old at the time and on the Saturday mornings when my grandad was not working he would ask what I wanted to do, the answer was obvious. The museum had on display the nameplate of another coronation class pacific, Queen Mary(46222), which was my final 'cop' of this class of locomotive when I was 11 years old. The target for all trainspotters was to complete all the 'semis', the name given to this most powerful of all the British locomotives. Happy days indeed.

Mallard, the fastest steam locomotive

The cab of a Coronation class pacific locomotive

Evening Star, the last steam locomotive built for British Railways

46222, my final Coronation class locomotive (semi)