The Trouble With Kettles

Cold Spring Shops reminds us of one flaw about steam locomotives that some of us forget, those cinders in the eyes.

I still remember travelling on the 2' gauge Vale of Rheidol in Wales when I was about 13, back in the days when it was still coal-fired, and a very painful cinder in the eye on the return trip, which didn't budge until that evening.

My best train memories of that holiday aren't of the narrow gauge steam lines at all, but the traffic on the Cambrian main line which ran right past the holiday cottage the family rented for the week. There was the class 24 spluttering up the Dovey valley on the evening Aberystwyth to York mail, a couple of Mk1s and a string of grubby parcels vans including several four-wheelers. Then there was the 'daily freight' along the coast line with its mix of 16t minerals, vanfits and the distinctive metal bodied gunpowder vans. And the two 24s double-heading the Saturdays only loco-hauled string of Mk1s to Pwllheli.

More recently, the last couple of times I've visited my nearest preserved railway, the East Lancashire, was during their diesel galas. Hymeks and Warships and Westerns, oh my....