Chemin Du Fer | The W o o l a m a l o o Gazette

Dad came through for a visit, so we could go together to watch the beautiful steam locomotive Sir Nigel Gresley paying a visit to Edinburgh’s huge Waverley Railway Station

Built in the 1930s, this is an A4 Pacific mainline locomotive, very powerful and fast (its sister loco, Mallard set the world speed record way back in the 1930s, hitting 126 MPH – obviously modern high-speed trains go far faster now, but it still retains the record for the fastest steam engine). They also boast this magnificent “streamliner” casings, partly about aerodynamics, partly drawing on the Art Deco style of the period. Like a few other transport designs, such as the Jaguar E-Type, I think it is a design which manages to be very much of its era and yet somehow also quite timeless.

Cabin crew leaning out to talk to the crowd on the platform

A perspective shot, to give an idea of the sheer size of this steel beast

The other weekend I got to see a gorgeous-looking steam locomotive, Tangmere, steaming its way into Edinburgh’s huge Waverley Station, after hauling a line of coaches up from York that morning.

It’s quite something to see a mainline steam locomotive in this day and age – I could hear it before I saw it, that distinctive huff-huff-huff sound before it emerged from the tunnel in a cloud of steam. It’s very different from seeing on in a museum, as a static exhibit – this is one doing what it was built to do, snorting steam, “breathing”, fire in its belly, a steel dragon, effortlessly hauling a long, line of coaches.

I’ve never seen one of this type in action before – Tangmere is a Battle of Britain Class loco, named after the RAF airfield near the village of Tangmere, which was an important air station during the Battle of Britain. These “spam cans” or “slabsides” (due to their distinctively shaped airflow casings) were designed for the Southern Region, so not something that would be seen up here even back when steam locos were common.