The Enginemen, Chapter 5/2

Pete was off immediately to the pub, but James was not a convivial man. He told Pete he’d see him later, then made his way with his overnight bag, along the Walter Road towards Sketty, turning off into the parallel Hanover Street at the foot of Constitution Hill, where the company had regular lodgings booked for men working double-home jobs to Swansea, a practice that had been nearly phased out at Old Oak until Philip Doig introduced the ‘own engine’ turns that were uneconomic if diagrams were cut too short and engine changes at locations like Cardiff were to be avoided.

The lodging house was a three storey early Edwardian terraced house, with creaking corridors and a shared bathroom on each floor, and James found he had been allocated a shared twin bedded room with his fireman at the top of the house. The room was rather small for two grown men, with little clothing storage space, but James quickly stripped off his overalls, checked the whereabouts of the bathroom on the third floor and ran the bath, testing that hot water was available at this time of day, something that could not be taken for granted.

He went back to the bedroom, threw his things on the bed nearer the window overlooking the tiny front garden and Hanover Street, checked that the net curtains were fully closed, and returned to have a long soak while the house was empty of all but the landlady, an elderly and trenchant Welsh woman by the name of Edith Beynon. The bath was small and cramped, but James Peplow was determined to relieve his aching limbs and let the accumulated dirt rinse away, and he lay back until the water became tepid and no longer a pleasurable experience. He dried himself as best he could in the space available, and transferred to the bedroom to complete the task where he could stretch out without knocking his frame against a wall or protruding piece of bathroom furniture.

Afterwards he sauntered down to the wide bay and watched a couple of lads on the local municipal ‘pitch and put’ course for a while, then betook himself through the narrow pedestrian underpass to the sandy beach and read the next chapters of the book he had currently from the Kennington library, a translation of Thomas Mann’s ‘Buddenbrooks’. The April sunshine was pleasant, warm enough to allow a couple of hours sitting in the open, although there was no sign of anyone braving the water so early in the season. He was alerted to the time by the sudden merry ‘whoop’ of the 5/35 Swansea Victoria to Pontardulais’ pannier tank, as it clattered behind him with its one corridor coach that was sufficient for the local commuter traffic. The single track skirted the beach from Swansea’s other station, a barrier between the townsfolk and the undeveloped bay, although the track curved landwards just beyond the point where James was sitting, crossing over the main Swansea - Mumbles road where trams had once held sway.

He took the bus into the city centre, had a meal and was tempted to see a film, but nothing whetted his appetite so he returned early to the lodging house, intending to read before retiring to bed. There was no sign of Pete, but he was waylaid by the landlady who attempted to engage him in conversation. James had really no desire to prolong this contact, Mrs Beynon’s political views were well known to the railwaymen who lodged there. She regaled all who would listen on the iniquities of the Macmillan government which she perceived as dangerously left-wing. The granting of independence to countries that had been part of the British Empire was usually the catalyst for her rants, although this time she held forth about her horror at the election of Kennedy to the American presidency instead of that ‘sound’ Mr Nixon. When she began to castigate the Russians for sending a dog into space - she seemed to have no qualms about an expendable Russian cosmonaut - James had had enough and made his excuses, abandoning the small sitting room for his bedroom, where he sat uncomfortably on the one upright chair by the sash window in the fading light, finishing his chapter.

At least Pete was still on the town. That meant no competition for the bathroom and subsequently he could undress and prepare himself for bed in privacy, for living so long alone at home, he was unused to the sharing of bedrooms with other adults, a feature of most B & B’s that the railway company hired for their men forced to lodge away from home. He was drifting into sleep when he heard loud conversation outside and a group of enginemen who’d ganged up together entered and met with hearty banter, for Mrs Beynon liked nothing better than to josh these brash young men, getting them only too easily to rise to the bait she always set them. He was wide awake now, he heard clumping footsteps on the narrow steep stairway and the door was pushed open with no attempt to dull the sound.

Pete saw James already tucked up in bed, and blustered: “Sorry, mate, did I wake you? I thought you’d still be on the town.” He didn’t really think. If he had, he’d have expected James to be in bed, because he hardly ever spent time away from base in late night entertainment. The man had no inhibitions, he stripped down to his underpants, picked up the folded coarse white towel that had seen better days from the counterpane and whistled his way to the bathroom to perform his noisy ablutions, not even bothering to close either door properly.

James groaned to himself. The man was drunk, not incapably so, but was different from his usual taciturn ways which made him an acceptable mate for himself. He returned to the bedroom still drying his chest and armpits, then sat heavily on the bed and began to dry between his toes, chattering one-sidedly to James as he did so. James looked at the man’s torso. He was a handsome young fellow, well muscled, but with a taut figure honed by the constant physical exercise. His physique was spoiled in James’ view by the dark body hair that covered his chest and back, unlike his own smooth body which he kept assiduously clean from such growth by constant attention with his razor. Then, throwing the towel to the floor, Pete stood and dropped his pants and slipped nude between the sheets, dowsing the bedroom light except for the small lamp beside his bed.

James lay awake. It was not long before loud snoring was emitted from the other bed. Noises of men talking in loud voices seeped through the poorly insulated rooms, cisterns were flushed, doors slammed, and still the snoring continued unabated. James thought of switching on his own bedside lamp and reading more from his book, but in the end he drifted into a light sleep, as prelude to longer oblivion.

His alarm went off at 4.30. Without turning on the light, he crept to the bathroom and washed. He dressed quickly before Pete stirred, then sat on the bed and waited. Around five o’clock, his mate’s alarm sounded, he had slept through the earlier alarm. He dragged himself from the bed , picked up his towel and slipped, naked, down the still dark corridor. He was back within minutes still drying himself unselfconsciously, ignoring James sitting on the only chair, pretending to read. The landlady had left out their frugal breakfast overnight and had put a couple of pasties in their lunch boxes, now left out for them on the table.

The pair walked through the dark streets, wordlessly, and up the hill to Landore depot. 5008 awaited them, fire lit. To the east the sky was lightening perceptibly, but the air struck cold. Shadows moved about their business. Sounds of the depot stirring, the gentle hissing of steam, the clang of coal being shovelled and fed into open firebox doors, the sudden echoing report as someone dropped a spanner, but no voices. The minutes ticked by. The red needle began to creep up the dial of the steam pressure gauge. James finished his oiling. They were ready to move out to the open to the coaling stage and water column.

Five hours later they were easing gently up platform 9 at Paddington terminus, to the buffer stops. No fuss, just a couple of minutes early after a straightforward non-stop run from Swindon, no need to hurry. Pete had not had to work hard this trip, James thought. She’s light on coal, although they’d had top grade Welsh coal again, which made life easier. He leant on the cabside, watching the passengers hurrying off to their next appointments, most disappearing in the direction of the underground. No-one seemed to notice him or his engine. People were too preoccupied with their own thoughts, their own plans. Pete jumped down and disappeared in search of a refill of tea for the billycan.

The platform emptied. Trains arrived and departed, their exhaust echoing in the cathedral ambience of the great station. A diesel intruded with an alien sound as it arrived opposite on platform 8 with a train from the West of England. A pannier tank attached itself to the other end of their train, James watched as the brake pressure was destroyed, then restored as the new arrival took control of the train, ready to draw the empty coaches back to Old Oak Common. He unwound the handbrake and allowed his engine to become a silent passenger at the rear as the cavalcade got the green light to exit from the platform. As they cleared the station canopy, James could hear the tiny engine coughing stentoriously away at the front end of the dozen coaches, while they did nothing, a slight smoke haze drifting from 5008’s chimney, otherwise silence.

At the entrance to the carriage sidings they train stopped and Pete jumped down to uncouple 5008. James applied a little steam to ease up to squeeze the buffers and slacken the screw coupling so that Pete could lift it from the coach hook and resecure it to the drawbar hook on the locomotive tender. When the coaches had disappeared to their sidings, the points were reset for the shed and James took his ‘Castle’ back onto the reception road over the pit for the fire to be dropped, the ash from the smokebox to be shovelled out and for the engine’s tender to receive five tons of coal dropped from the coaling stage, ready for its next trip. They left the engine there, a shedman would put 5008 away before its pressure dropped so low that it was insufficient to control its brake. They walked in silence to the booking off window, and with a one word farewell, parted.

James walked up the depot drive to the canteen, and slipped inside for a bowl of soup and crust to temporarily assuage his hunger, then hurried away up the road to Willesden Junction station to get the tube to Waterloo and Oval.

It was now mid afternoon on an unusually hot April day. He felt hot and tired and dirty. He unlocked the front door of his home, closed and locked it behind him, went straight to the bedroom and removed his overalls, threw his bag on the bed and ran the bath. He put on a long playing record, Mahler’s 5th, undressed and lay back in the bath, shut his eyes, let his muscles relax. He was home. He thought about his engine. There was no doubt about it. She was a good mate, she’d performed impeccably.