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.

One of the massive drive wheels in close-up