Part Two
is in the 1990s section of the print scan archive with the first four from the fields around Oldland Common
Mac the Latch
Cooing and Froing
Red Tractor, Golden Valley
Crow Lines
Her Salliness
The Big HSevern Bridge
Evening by the RiverThe Severn at Bewdley, all persons strangers
StreakA Gresley A4 Pacific (60009
Union of South Africa), where art meets engineering. A beautiful, awesome machine.
Another example still holds the world record for a steam locomotive of 126 mph. [/I was a pre-pubescent trainspotter,
now it can be told]. Chip and I were on holiday in Bewdley, near the Severn Valley Railway, and were out walking when
I heard a distant steam whistle, then saw a plume of smoke and water vapour appearing from the woods across the valley,
maybe a quarter mile away, and from the way the plume was laid back I could tell that the engine was going quite fast.
Then it came out of the woods into an open stretch, and I saw what it was (as a boy of 10 or so, I started going up to
the local suburban station, Harringay West, on my scooter to check out the trains out of King's Cross on the main line to
Newcastle and Edinburgh. Later on, I would be one of the guys on the platform, notebook in hand, but then it was all
about the buzz of the Streaks, as they were widely known, the streamlined A4s that hauled up and down the East Coast
Main line: I'm hazy about their identities, but I was often there with a coterie of mates, and we would hang out on
a bridge over the through tracks, looking and listening both ways for the long whistle and onrushing shape of an express
barreling through, and trying to work out, and take up position over, the point on the bridge directly over where the
engine would pass. The reward, a dopplered thunder, maybe a scream from the whistle, the huge thump of displaced air
that would make you sway, the rush and rumble of the carriages beneath your feet, a minor clap as the last one emerged,
then the rattle disappearing behind) (I bet you all forgot that was a parenthetical insertion, didn't you?), I astonished Chip
by mouthing the word 'Streak' and falling to my knees in astonishment and wonder, tears in my eyes. Not only was it the
first time I'd seen one in motion in more than 30 years, there was the unexpectedness of it all and the romantic nature of
the setting. It was only out of the woods, as it were, for a matter of a few seconds, and I didn't have time to get my camera
out of its bag, but later that week we went to Bridgnorth station (I think) and found it parked, so I took this one.
back tomorrow, I hope and trust, with more archive fun
