The Enginemen, Chapter 11/2

The next day he felt relief to be back at the depot. It didn’t matter that no-one spoke to him, he felt more at home here than in his own house. He was early, far too early for his turn, so he went and sat in 5008’s cab. The firelighters had been at work and the pressure gauge needle was creeping up to the 100 psi mark. He opened the firehole door and peered into the fire that was building. Although it was not his job, he picked up the shovel and delivered half a dozen rounds of coal evenly over the fire and put the blower on to increase the draught.

Then he picked up a piece of cotton waste and began to burnish the already polished controls, handles and levers which had been disfigured by the pink paint of the vandals who’d taken out their anger at his conduct during the strike on his engine. He’d spent days afterwards scraping the garish paint from the cab, touching up with cream paint the roof and sides of the cab, removing all the flecks of paint from brass and steel. The Factory painter had resprayed the parts of the tender that had been disfigured – you could see that the paintwork was uneven but the words of abuse had been removed. The smokebox door was now pristine – the face of his engine.

When the shedman came to attend the engine further, he was astonished to find James already there, took a brief glance at the fire and indicated that if James was willing, he’d leave it to him. After three quarters of an hour, James decided it was time to book on and he clambered down, taking a last look at the fire and pressure gauge, the latter now indicating 180 psi. He found Jim Plunkett in the lobby and left him there without a word while he went to check on the late notice case as he didn’t wish to be caught out by any newly inflicted engineering restrictions.

By the time they were back on their engine, 5008 was nearing full boiler pressure and James instructed his fireman to fill the boiler to stop the engine blowing off steam inside the shed. Jim muttered something about the shed staff getting ahead of themselves and by 12/30 they had already run down to the water column to replenish the tank before running up tender first to Paddington. They were then held at the outlet of the depot for twenty minutes before the ‘bobby’ gave them the road and they had backed onto their train, the 1/40 to Gloucester and Bristol, which they’d work to Gloucester and back, as on the previous day, dropping three of the twelve coaches off at Swindon to work down as a stopping service a few minutes after their departure.

5008 was impatient to go, Plunkett had been unable to muzzle the engine for very long and it was now letting off steam furiously so that it was difficult to communicate with the guard when he came to give them the load and take their details for his paperwork. With so much steam to play with, Peplow roused the echoes back from the stark apartment walls of Ladbroke Grove and it was not long before they had crossed the 60 mph mark and the speed still piled on as he cleared Southall already a couple of minutes up on the schedule nearing 70 mph. It was of little use as the Hayes slack was still on though it had been raised from the 15 mph of Monday to 40 mph now. He accelerated hard again afterwards and was still early into Reading where they had to wait time for three minutes before they got the ‘right away’. Plunkett was sweating profusely trying to keep the firing rate up to cope with his driver’s heavy-handedness and they ran into Swindon a full four minutes before time. Again they had to wait and Peplow cursed as the shunter required to split the train was not in position as they ran in and it was already two minutes after the scheduled departure time before he got the signal to depart.

Plunkett was working hard now to rebuild the fire ready for the climb to Sapperton and the plunge into the Cotswolds and the noise from 5008 as Peplow first increased the cut off to 25%, then 30% and finally 35, was awesome in the extreme as the train thundered into Sapperton Tunnel with speed still over 50 mph. Plunkett ventured an admonitory ‘half my fire is going up the chimney, guvnor’, but it got no response and the fireworks display when they ran into the darkness of the tunnel was very evident to the passengers. Being early at Stroud and Stonehouse was of little import to James Peplow. He was fearful of a last minute delay into Gloucester itself and was determined that at least they’d have no deficit to overcome before leaving the penultimate station before the terminus. He need not have worried. There was four minutes recovery time on the last section and his fear of a last minute signal stand outside the station did not materialise. They delivered their passengers to Gloucester a full seven minutes before their expected arrival time.

Normally the crew would go to the shed mess room and eat their sandwiches together, but Jim Plunkett told James, after a shed crew had relieved them, that he was going into the city and would be back in good time. James didn’t ask him the reason and the young man did not volunteer any explanation. The return journey started easily enough. They had a light load as the restaurant car was in the Bristol portion in this direction. They drew, early, into Swindon’s northernmost platform and waited for the Bristol train which would be hauled by a ‘Warship’ which would stop half-way down the adjacent platform, cut off and run to shed, allowing 5008 and the Gloucester section to draw forward and back onto the rest of the train. Ten minutes were allowed for this manoeuvre and it needed some fairly slick working, so James Peplow was keyed up waiting for the other half of the train.

The minutes ticked over and there was no sign of the Bristol train or its diesel, then an Inspector came up to their cab and said that they’d have to wait – the Bristol’s ‘Warship’ was running on only one engine and would arrive about twenty minutes late. It eventually slunk in nearly 25 minutes late and growled off to the shed its one working engine sounding very unhealthy. As soon as Peplow got the subsidiary signal to pull ahead, he yanked the regulator handle right over and the ‘Castle’ accelerated its five coaches rapidly over the couple of hundred yards to clear the points before screeching to a halt undoubtedly catching a few passengers unawares – at least they did not have the restaurant or buffet passengers to worry about, although when they set off backwards, Peplow had to judge his braking to avoid shaking up the passengers in both portions as the buffers met.

The platform work was finally completed and they set off for Paddington 24 minutes late. Plunkett knew he was going to have to work hard - his mate had pushed him hard when it seemed unnecessary; now there was a real reason to hurry he knew he had good cause to fear. Luckily the engine was in good condition – Peplow saw to that – and they had good quality coal, so they should have no problem for steam as long as he worked hard. Peplow kept the cut off at 20% for some distance, eventually pulling it back to 18%, but he left the regulator full over and 5008, despite over 400 tons behind the tender, had reached 80 mph by Wantage Road and was maintaining this rate through Didcot all the way to Reading, where they arrived unchecked just 18 minutes behind schedule.

Peplow noted with grim satisfaction that Plunkett had managed to maintain boiler pressure and before getting the right away from Reading, had a good look at the fire and decided that there was no reason to hold back. Once the ‘RA’ signal lit, Peplow had 5008 in full forward gear, with wide open regulator once more and it was astonishing that the engine did not slip on the greasy rails at the London end of Reading’s platform 5. Once more the sparks flew into the dark night and they were through Slough in well under ‘even time’ whistle screaming as they hit the junction to the Windsor line at nearly 85 mph. Peplow looked at his watch and thought that if the signalmen did their job properly, he could be less than ten minutes late in and wondered if he could subtract the seven minutes early arrival at Gloucester from the minutes late arrival back at Paddington to minimise the forfeit he’d now become obsessed with in his mind.

They passed Old Oak Common just twelve minutes adrift and Peplow thought they might even make single figures when he saw a double yellow, then a single yellow ahead which did not change, so he had to make a substantial brake application. As they neared Westbourne Park, the red signal ahead obstinately refused to budge and Peplow brought 5008 to a stand and scampered down onto the track to ring the signalman to find out the cause of the delay. “Sorry, mate,” came the reply. “We’ve got points failures at Paddington. We’ve sent for the technician, don’t know how long you’ll have to wait. Might be a long time.”

Peplow cursed and wrung his hands. Jim Plunkett began to worry that his mate might be ill. He even asked him if he was okay, but just got a grunt that seemed to indicate that there was no physical malady. The minutes ticked by – ten, twenty minutes, then suddenly the signal in front of him cleared to single yellow, then green even before he’d blown the brakes off and opened the regulator. 5008’s exhaust shot skywards and crashed against the station vault as they ran into platform 9, the train coming to a sudden and well-judged halt exactly 30 minutes late.

When he got home, late and tired, he couldn’t be bothered about eating but he stripped for a bath and lay in the warm water wondering whether he could get away with forgetting about the ‘forfeit’ he was feeling obliged to enact. Surely nothing would happen if he just dried himself, had a quick supper and went to bed. At length he persuaded himself to act sensibly and had turned off the bedroom light by eleven o’clock. But, although he was exhausted, sleep would not come. He lay still at first, then tossed and turned and the thought came into his mind that his rare insomnia was caused by his failure to punish himself for his train’s lateness. The more he thought about this, the more wide awake he became. He tried to tell himself that it was ridiculous, the lateness of his train was no reflection on his own performance or that of his engine – in fact between them they had recovered much time that had been lost by others. But he felt his tension rise, he was past sleep now, he’d have to take some action, if only to take a couple of aspirins.

He got out of bed and stared at his haggard face in the mirror. It was ten past one. Then he made up his mind. He knew he would not be satisfied until he did it. He unbuttoned his pyjama jacket and threw it on the bed, untied the trousers and let them slip to the floor. He pulled the belt from his day trousers, wound the buckle end round his palm, and lashed at himself with all his power gasping as the first blow stung his buttocks. He lashed at himself in a sudden suppressed fury, counting the blows between gritted teeth and got to 23.

He stopped. Could he offset the morning early arrival against the 30 minutes of the return journey? He was tempted, his bottom felt sore and his arm ached. Then he knew that he’d have to complete the self punishment because he’d not relax in case the remaining seven strokes tarried in his mind. He renewed the whipping, slowly, savouring each extra stroke, wincing at the momentary pain that slowly diffused until he was ready to strike the next blow. He threw the belt onto the wicker chair beside his bed and padded, naked, to the kitchen and helped himself to a glass of water and the aspirin anyway. By this time, he could just feel the warmth emanating from his buttocks; it was not unpleasant unless he actually rubbed himself, then he could feel the soreness. He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror and saw that his bottom was a vivid red but that there were no obvious weals that would not soon fade. He put his pyjamas back on, got into bed and was asleep within moments. Next morning he examined his body and could find no traces of his beating.