Introduction to the Steam Trains Photograph Collection

Over forty years ago the Cuban Missile Crisis threatened nuclear war. My school class of ten year olds was addressed by Mr. Clarke, the Headmaster. With great seriousness, he explained to us that the world could end within days. I have never forgotten.

Imagine that it is the 1960's: America is at war and The Beatles are on the radio. In England, gangland figures are courted by the glitterati. The Profumo affair has disgraced the government and has left behind it the suspicion of widespread corruption. In Northern Ireland "the Troubles" are set to errupt into decades of violence.

The English railway network has been ruthlessly pruned - arguably beyond the point of economic sustainability ... and it is still losing money. New towns and suburbs are being encircled by new ring roads ... which lead to new motorways. The Age of Steam is almost over.

At Darlington Station, an enormous engine: "Saint Simon", of Gateshead Loco. is hissing and sizzling at the rag end of a wet August afternoon. The air smells of metal and wet cinders. Rivulets of oily rainwater streak and bead the once - green paintwork. A brass plate gleams against the filthy boiler cladding. Valves have lifted and the noise is dense and physical. It is not a sound: it is an environment.

I am a twelve year old schoolboy. I make shy eye - contact with the Fireman - an enormous black man in bib and brace overalls, and with a knotted handkerchief perched on his head. He winks at me, then rolls his eyes upwards in the gesture of resignation.

Valves shut and there is silence: The Engine Driver leans out from the cab door and glances back at his train: a few seconds of expectation. A distant whistle calls "right away" and the engine brake is blown off. "Saint Simon" appears to roll forward an inch or two ... and then eases into motion. There is a short pause ... and then a great heave: motion parts flail and shudder in a sudden bout of wheelspin: the engine is losing its footing at every third - or fourth exhaust beat. Eruptions of black smoke are flung high into the air. Particles of soot are everywhere. The noise is apocalyptic.

I walk alongside the centre driving wheel; rods thrash and chatter for short, hypnotic, stroboscopic seconds. I break into a jog to keep pace with the engine as it picks up speed.

The cab slides past me, and then the tender, and then the carriages: dull maroon paint and brass door handles: the windows are filmed with condensation, smeared where they have been impatiently wiped. Blurred faces peer out into the drizzle.

I have to stop running now: The engine's exhaust becomes regular and then affirmative ... and then assertive: it will be audible long after the train has shrunk to nothing.

Now come with me into St Margaret's Loco. ... It is nearly dark on an Edinburgh December afternoon, between Christmas and the New Year. We boys, with our dufflle bags are crowded and shivering in the Clockmill Lane entrance, waiting to be conducted across the running lines. Engine smoke lowers the sky and dims the yard lamps, coiling from the mouth of Calton Tunnel, thick with the smell of brimstone. The wooden boards of the foot crossing are slimed by the spoor of big locomotives.

A rivet gun chatters in the dark. It takes courage to walk through a wall of steam. At head height, lot numbers have been hammered into motion parts.

Green oil smears bright pistons. The enormous engines have a worrying presence: they bubble and hiss in their sleep. Yellow flare lamps, layers of smoke, oily cobbles, leaking standpipes, spilled oil and hot water - and all in deep moving shadows. One proceeds with great caution in the thick and ominous murk.

Let me describe the place and the times: We are now in the North East of England, where the world looks much the same as it always has done: grimy steam engines clank between colliery yards. At school we boys wear blazers and shorts and caps. Christine Keeler is the much - discussed subject of youthful speculation and innuendo.

For those families that own a television, there are two channels - both are in black and white. At the end of this decade a man will walk on the moon.

At lunchtime - "dinner time", we called it - air raid sirens call workers back to the chemical factories. After dark, streetlamps are lit by a lamplighter who walks his rounds with a barrow and stepladder. On foggy days, ship sirens boom from the River Tees. The average wage for a local man is less than £10 a week.

Present day memories are of nights spent lying awake, listening to Radio Luxembourg under the bedclothes - and listening to steam engines rough - shunting wagons in Stockton marshalling yards: buffers clang and smash together, engines snuffle and bark. And the "Midnight" - the 23:49 to London - rattling along behind its' big Pacific, which shuts off for the shallow right hand curve past Stockton Loco. and into the station.

And the never - ending coal trains: slow - plodding up towards Norton South signalbox behind their Q6's. And the sharp, sharp squeal of those North Eastern Railway whistles...

And those are my memories. Much worn and cherished but memories of an entirely different world - which will, of course, die when I do. I do hope that you enjoy the photographs.

Andy Elliott