Restored in the dark…

This time last week I was making a packed lunch and getting ready to head out in the Up! to go ‘log train’ hunting. Even a week later that experience leaves me with a deep sense of excitement and a feeling of the restorative calm that followed…

Yesterday I was invited to join Terry (and second man Matt) aboard the Llangollen Railway’s Class 26, 5310 at the head of a Santa Special. I wasn’t expecting the most memorable of experiences, a pedestrian 10mph or so to allow Santa enough time to traverse the train before reaching Lapland (sorry Carrog). It was more a chance to catch up with Terry, with whom I now co-create the Llangollen Railway Trust’s magazine (more on that in a seperate post) than for the pure train experience, that being said, I was looking forward to seeing the line at night.

Picked up at Glyndyfrdwy, the journey out was uneventful. The train well loaded required a pleasant pause after Fisherman’s crossing between Glyn and Carrog. We talked trains and day dreamed of what we’d like to imagine both on the railway and mainline. The journey back to Llangollen was uneventful, as the light left the valley and night began to fall the lights of the carriages and the noise and smell of the locomotive became a purer experience, and as I sat waiting for the ‘last train’ to take me back to Glyn my mind wandered and dreamt of being sat at Inverness with the night train to Lochdubh.

5310 is a working museum piece, not a stuffed prop - underneath layers of paint are history and in the low light of the cab Terry pointed out the old number just obliterated earlier in its preservation - yet not entirely, its long and proud BR service evidenced not just by these overpainted vinyl stickers but the air brake conversion with ex-Deltic equipment!

 

As we left Llangollen, the line dark and without anything other than two weak marker lights and some Christmas decorations for illumination I marvelled at Terry and Matt’s ability to spot signals and tell where they were - a fair amount of light pollution from the road and houses was left behind as we passed Berwyn and headed for the tunnel. 

It was here that it happened and I’m not sure, even this morning, that I can put it into words…

The steam driver (who had the brakes) and Terry were on the radio and I gathered we’d traverse the tunnel at ‘line speed’ - accelerating from 10 up to about 25mph. I proactively opened the second man’s window beside me in anticipation of the noise from 5310… Terry sounded the horn as we entered the abyss and opened her up - I was like a big kid, the bark of the Sulzer echoing of the tunnel roof almost hypnotic. I was in my own YouTube 80s train video, lost in the audio experience alone. As the amps built the throttle opened further, the load of 6 Mk1s and a “dead” steam were quite enough for us to recreate heaven. Time slowed. My ear to the window, the noise from the exhaust blending with that from within the cab, the vibration combined with the lack of light to only amplify the experience. With no light it was hard to tell where we were, or our speed - desperate for it not to end and thrilled that it just kept coming I could feel that same innocent child like joy from last weekend build then wash over me - a pure and cleansing energy that restored me once more.

As we burst out into the Dee Valley greeted only by the stars and distant farm lighting the train returned to its slower pace as did our conversation, turning to the experience of steam drivers of old, marvelling at their experience and skill to run at line speed and sighting signals in terrible conditions without accident. Before much longer we were home, and as I climbed down at Glyn I was sucked once more into the black night - alone with my thoughts, my excitement and energy - walking back on the lane already re-living the feeling.

What’s more this experience is not just fuel in the tank for the holiday ahead, it will live on in memory for sometime. In moments of pain or sadness I can take myself back to that cab, to that most visceral, pure powerful experience and reset my thoughts, my mind calming in the second hand experience, re-lived, yet alive once more. I love trains.

Until next time, more soon…

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