Picking up steam

Chugging and chuffing their way around heritage lines across the country, steam locomotives continue to capture our imagination, says Octavia Pollock

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WHEN Wilbert Awdry lay in bed as a child, he heard voices in the noise of the trains chugging up Box Hill in Wiltshire: 'Yes I can, yes I can, yes I can.' Those voices became Thomas the Tank Engine and friends and, on the hundreds of heritage railways across Britain, locomotives still speak to mechanics, drivers and enthusiasts.

For Steve Oates, CEO of the Heritage Railway Association (HRA), the voices ring loud: 'A steam locomotive is the nearest mechanical thing to a living beast. They grunt and they groan and they chuff and they steam.' Rebecca Dalley, CEO of the Watercress Line in Hampshire, agrees: 'Driving a locomotive is more like riding a horse than driving a car.' Rob Gambrill, trustee of Hollycombe Steam in the Country in West Sussex, uses the same simile and adds: 'They are visceral creatures. You have to adapt continually to a loco, they all have their own ways. Once you have an understanding, it will look after you.'

The 300-odd members of the HRA include every gauge and age of steam locomotive, from funiculars and tramways to 7½in gauge miniature railways and mainline heritage trains, such as