They did say this...

I wonder what they'd have thought if the message had asked for a Toad, as well!!

 

Toads aren't part of the regular Civils fleet.
Sealions might have been possible.

 

Sealions? Ye gods - that would have got you more than a funny look!

 

In the early days of the SVR I used to show visitors the cab of the 8F. Many a father pointed to the reverser to advise, 'And that, son, is how you steer it!'

 

You should have then taken them to a loco with lever reverser and asked dad how they steered it

 

Another one comes to mind. It was on an SMF Special, two return runs the full length of the SVR, and participants drew lots for a footplate ride between two adjacent stations. One winner was a young lady who wasn't at all keen, but was eventually persuaded to try it. At the station she jumped on to 2968, shot across the footplate, sat down on the fireman's seat, looked around for a few seconds before asking, 'Where's the seat belt?'

 

Not quite as silly as it seems. In German the reverser is the 'steuerung' = 'steering'.

 

... and control column on an aircraft. And tax...

 

Once upon a time at Longmoor. An 8f returned from the Middle East with lever operated shut off valves at the clacks - a special ME mod to ease clack valve changing.

Captain: Why has that engine got horns sticking up at the sides?
Corporal: Reins Sir. When it has to go round sharp curves they tie reins up there, and lead them back to the cab. It helps the crew to steer.
Captain: Very good corporal, carry on.

 

I mentioned steam trains to some youngsters.

"I remember steam trains on the Huddersfield line." said one of them.

He was far to young for real steam, so I assumed it was a railtour. I asked him to describe it. He gave a perfect description of a Class 108.

 

Well he's more knowledgeable than me I've got no idea what a 108 is.

 

Neither had he, but he gave a good description of a 2-car DMU with slam doors, drop windows and you could see out the front. He really thought that was a steam train.

 

Heard this one today from the our cleaner who's ex BR, in the late '70s there was an open day at Crown Point and Deltic 15 (He thinks) was an exibit, anyhow when it worked back to Finsbury Park, it being a Deltic did the usual trick of throwing out a hell of a lot of white smoke upon its departure which caused a mother to say to her son 'that's a steam engine, you don't see many of them round here anymore'

 

Scene on the 1835 Waterloo - Weymouth north of Micheldever some years ago. An overheard exchange between a commuter who had been shouting into his mobile for the previous hour and a country area guard .....

"Why can't I get a mobile signal? I must make an important phone call, now!"

"Because the train is stopped in a deep cutting and from what I remember from physics "O" level, radio waves don't pass through chalk. Once we're underway you'll get a signal as we approach Winchester."

A voice somewhere down the coach started singing softly " Silence is golden, golden......."

Cheers, Neil

 

Any time I'm on a train and hear some pillock yelling into a mobile, I give into the urge to shout "HELLO? I'M ON THE TRAIN". Of course as Trigger Happy TV recedes more and more into the televisual past, less and less people realise the significance of the retort. But it still usually gets a laugh.

 

I was once on a train opposite a woman in a non-stop conversation on her mobile which had started with the inevitable; "I'm on the train". Then there was a few seconds' silence, she looked out of the window and then said: "Dunno, it's fields outside".

 

My wife has a habit of phoning people when we are in the car in the countryside. Magically she gets a connection but then, conversation in full flow, loses it with great frustration. I keep telling her that they don't put mobile phone transmitters in the country because they can affect milk yields but she never learns.

 

At Sherringham a "little old lady" asked "What will you boys do when you leave school"?
Lady, I replied, I'm serving in the RAF and the Driver is at University studying for his Master's Degree.
Oh, she said. But you're both covered in dirt and I know schoolboys like getting dirty, so I thought you must both be schoolboys.

I read in one driver's remaniscences how he drove a 15XX panier into Paddington with ECS. A senior army officer came and asked if he was propelling the train all the way to Penzance and if his view would be obscured at any stage.

 

Didcot mid 70's. I am expanding the tubes in the smokebox of 3738. Ma, Pa and the kiddies are assembled by Pa to observe. "See those black holes?" Everybody nods. "Water comes out of those...."