He crossed the threshold of Ramsbottom Railway Station and found himself in the world of the 1950s. All around him were those maroon-coloured signs telling you where to find the Ladies and the Gentlemen and the Waiting Room and the Ticket Office. Two men were sitting inside that little office now, screened by the glass window, with its two apertures, one for talking into, and the other for passing tickets out of. The Waiting Room had an open hearth and beside it a coal scuttle. All was as it should be, and more to the point, as it used to be.
Walking onto the platform the man saw the notice board, with its fresh chalk messages for today’s events, telling of trains and times to such magical places as Heywood and Bury and Haslingden. And then the man had to smile, for there in bold writing was the main event of the day, chalked up proudly for all comers to see. “ 15.59. Last train to Rawtenstall.”
This was pure poetry. Not a four o’clock train, notice. That would be too prosaic, just flat verse. No. 15.59 is poetic, romantic even, and a last train to Rawtenstall cannot be anything else. Oh what stories could be written about the last train to Rawtenstall!
Just then a murmur of excitement rose from the assembled crowd on platform two, and heads were turned towards the south, where a puff of smoke heralded the arrival of the steam train. After the excitement of the Chocolate Fair in the town, the arrival of a shiny steam train now absorbed all the attention.
The Duke of Gloucester steamed in proudly, pulling a goodly number of old time carriages, and came to a halt beside the admiring crowd. Some of the people were would-be passengers, others were simply onlookers, but all were admirers, and the steam engine knew it. She chuffed proudly at her standstill, and let off occasional shrill blasts of white-hot steam from her boiler. Look at me, she seemed to say, all shiny green, and oil-blacked wheels, like new shoes, all noise and power and get out of my way.
The man thought that he knew this train, that maybe he recognised it from years gone by, when, as a boy and a train-spotter, he had gone to Tyldesley Station to watch trains and ‘collect’ them. She was certainly a very handsome engine, no doubt about it. A long shiny green boiler ended with fine square shields at her front, on which her name-plate was bolted, Duke of Gloucester. And the number was very familiar – 71000. At the same time there was a slight doubt in his mind. This train didn’t come through Tyldesley, as I recall, the man told himself.
It would be a few days later, when the man returned home and investigated on the ‘Net’, that all was revealed. The train that pulled into Ramsbottom Station that day was indeed an old friend, and with a very special connection.
The Duke of Gloucester was built in 1954, but its crews were never impressed with its performance. There was something sluggish about it. It did not draw steam the way it should. The power was not there, and as the railways were thinking of turning to diesel, no great effort was made to correct the faults in this proto-type engine, and no more trains of its type were made. Instead the poor old Duke was relegated to working the easiest gradient line in the north, and spent its eight years of service pulling the coaches of the Irish passenger and mail train from Crewe Station to Holyhead, in the years of 1954 to 1962.
Those years were the years of childhood holidays to Ireland and the man suddenly realised that perhaps it was on cold nights at Chester General that, as he stood with the rest of his family, waiting for their connection to the Holyhead boat, that this shiny engine had come into his sight and forever lodged in his memory. Or, maybe he had walked past it with his suitcase, at Holyhead, he all eager to get on the boat, and the Duke weasing and blowing steam after the long haul from Crewe. Well, well, well, he thought, as he read this information on his computer screen, who’d a thowt!
The man read on. After 1962 the engine was put on the scrapheap, and many of its parts were removed. But a group of railway enthusiasts rescued her, and over the course of thirteen dedicated years, they returned her to her former glory. They also discovered that she had a design fault to do with the chimney, and a construction fault inside the boiler. When these were addressed, and the engine refitted, the Duke of Gloucester came back on the line faster than any locomotive before her, and faster than the diesel engines that had supplanted her in the mid sixties.
No wonder she stood there that day on Ramsbottom Station saying to all and sundry, “ Nar then, sithee!’
The man sat back and, in his mind, travelled back to Ramsbottom Station, to the sunny day and the happy crowds of people and the sparkling, shiny engine, all proud and pristine and pampered by crew and onlookers alike. Born in ’54, with a few unfathomed faults, worked till ’62, and put on the srapheap. Lovingly rescued and even more lovingly restored, she returns to the line, faster, sleeker, better than ever. Now she travels the country, forever in demand. People pore their love on her, and she never fails them.
The man smiled to himself. She is the ‘Last Train to Rawtenstall’ in my mind, he thought. Last, not in the sense of final, but ultimate and best.
Suddenly, the man was woken from his reverie by a voice from the kitchen. It was mum talking to her son.
“Will you tell the Duke of Gloucester to come out here now. His tea’s ready!”
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Erris Poetry 