John Miller

Its 2am, I sign on at Rotherwood, meet the driver, we are given a class 76 on which we climb on-board & travel light to Tinsley Yard. I drop off the loco go into shunters cabin, pick up the TOPS list & the shunter advises me your trains on road xx its all ready to go. So I flick the handpoints .. guide the loco onto the train, couple up, hand driver the drivers slip, release the handbrakes on the leading three wagons (making sure they matched the train list) & left the driver to draw out while I went up onto the bank & got the brake-van ready. The trains drawn out so I release the brake, freewheel onto the back of the train, couple the van & give the driver the green light for right away .. & off we go. ......Now this driver never messed about he just went out & back as quick as he could & go home. It was as we approached Wadsley Bridge, I was thinking much slower & we will be on twelve hours. We Crawled to Outibridge & on to Deepcar & all the way to Penistone. I was thinking what the hells going on there's no leafs & its dry (so no slipping) but on we went trundle trundle trundle all the way to Dunford Bridge & into the tunnel, I remember being stood on the van veranda thinking shall I get out & shove ... BUT, by the time we exited Woodhead Tunnel we were flying & I mean scary speed even to the point where I was applying the van brake. Through Crowden, Torside, Hadfield I'd never been so quick & I thought maybe the loco had a fault, it had rectified itself & the driver was making up time. We slowed a bit for Dinting, the Viaduct & Godley & we arrived safely at Dewsnap where the train terminated.....Strangely my brake-van came to a grinding halt outside the signalbox on the main line at the east end of the yard ... I was on the veranda, looking what was going on, when the signalman slung the box window open & shouted, you the guard .. I nodded .. you bloody idiot, you have brought two trains in one ... ehh!!!... I replied ... Your trains in the yard, the locos at the far end of the siding & your trains too bloody long. Its double the length, double the weight .. double everything .... shit I replied, what you want me to do .. nothing said the signalman .. the shunting staff are uncoupling half way down your train & a loco (turned out to be a class 40) is coming onto the rear to pull you out & put the rest of your train into another road. This took about an hour to complete .... we went back light to Rotherwood with me thinking how strange it was having the whistling forty next to my brake-van, a new experience for me & the driver saying just goes to show what a bloody good loco these old buggers are.