By Roy Mallinson

November 7th 1944, a cold gray day, my introduction to steam locomotives and the equally steely characters of the men, and a couple of ladies, who handled these vibrant giants, as a clerk might handle a pen. I had just passed my fourteenth birthday and this was my introduction to a working life as an engine cleaner.

Before being allowed near the engines I was given a shovel and a brush and shown how to keep the shed clean, after loco fires had been cleaned at the change of shift there were the numerous piles of hot ash and clinker to be moved into large steel skips. The morning shift always found the pits within the shed full of heavy wet ash where the ash pans had been swilled and raked out, but worst of all, especially if there was a wind, the fine black ash which had accumulated in the smoke box beneath the chimney, on being cleaned out always found its way into eyes and the most inaccessible places.

The days soon passed to the stage where I was let loose to make the engine shine with a liberal portion of oily waste, paraffin and tallow. One engine had, in pre war days, a shiny brass dome. At the onset of war this had been covered in thick, black, paint and it fell to me as peace was declared, to try and remove this horrible black mess, what a task. I used to go home with far more grease and dirt on my overalls than had ever been on the engines. I soon found how to get myself invited on to the footplate of a locomotive that was working out of site of the office, and in this way I soon found out the actual way to move these giants about. This was very handy and at fifteen years of age I was moving the engines around in the shed for the fitters to work on.

There were fourteen steam locomotives on the yard when I started, basically able to do the same tasks, yet each with its own individual idiosyncrasies. Two of the engines had only four wheels and were intended for working where the bends were tightest in some of the works departments, grand little workers unless there was a damp greasy atmosphere when they would slip and slide. These had been manufactured by Hudswell Clarke of Leeds as were four other six wheel saddle tank locos plus three side tank locos, one of which I am told is at Llangollen in Wales, this used to be Samuel Fox Number 20, but now bears the name JENNIFER, how are the mighty fallen.

Another six wheel side tank locomotive from the same manufacturer, Hudswell Clarke, was the Stocksbridge Railway Company’s engine. This was a company in its own rights being founded in 1874. Stocksbridge Railway had among its responsibilities, taking outward bound traffic from the steelworks to exchange sidings at Deepcar and bringing inward bound traffic into the yard. Six trips out and six trips back in the twenty-four hours. Going to Deepcar the length of the train had to be no longer than 36 wagon lengths, in order to fit into number two outward siding, this had you considering plate wagons at a length of one and a half and low loaders at two lengths. Inward bound the load was 28 wagon lengths in order that the train might be left on Ellen Cliffe weighbridge prior to weighing or after being weighed and be clear for main line running.

Earlier in time workers coming from Sheffield would catch a train to Deepcar, alight and then board the PADDY as it was called, this brought them into the siding and platform in the low yard of the steelworks and was a basic duty of Stocksbridge Railway. To work regularly on Stocksbridge railway one was transferred from Fox’s books and given a new clock number, it seemed as final as going to work in another town.

There were two six wheel tank engines built by Peckett of Bristol which I never knew to work anywhere but the Seimens stage, handling the pan bogies which carried the scrap steel, pig iron, alloys and limestone which went into making the eighty ton charge to feed the furnaces and produce the quality of steel desired. Once these furnaces had been tapped, and the ingots stripped from their moulds, work was provided for the largest of the engines. This was number 15 known to one and all as PETER, so called after the son of the former general manager Mr. Gerald Steel. Peter Steel was an apprentice at the works, but unfortunately lost his life in World War 2. The engine PETER and No 16 another six wheel saddle tank came from the noted works of Hawthorn Lesley on Tyneside and what magnificent machines they were, complete masters of the job. The attention to detail was so noticeable, on the day it was to be burnt for scrap, the original paintwork in the cab of No. 16 shone beautifully.

On returning to Stocksbridge after National Service I found that a number of the old engines had been burnt up, and, as we were now part of the United Steel Company, politics played a big part in choice and as Yorkshire Engine Company were now part of the combine we now had three of their six wheel saddle tank engines, not that they were not good engines, but they didn’t appear to have any individuality. Work carried on and then in 1953 I went home on Coronation Day having seen a Diesel engine which had been borrowed for trials. The end of steam was approaching.