Retired Engine Driver John Anthony has submitted another guest blog post, sharing a harrowing experience driving the magnificent 46229 Duchess of Hamilton. Without further ado, here is John’s third piece on his driving experiences!
Hello, my lovely folks, have you ever ridden behind “THE DUCHESS OF HAMILTON”? What a fine lady she is, just up my street, for I am an LMS man. I was driving her, one wet Saturday, from Carnforth to Skipton, with a water stop at Long Preston. I knew the water in the tender was pretty low but adequate… I slowed to 20 mph at Eldroth, then commenced the climb to Giggleswick when she started slipping and sliding for about half an hour, then the injector blew off! No water! You clever folks know what happens when a steam boiler runs out of water! With a white hot fire growling in its guts, it explodes!!! I crawled into Long Preston station with just froth in the gauge glass. I still wake the missus up in the middle of the night howling, “WATER! WATER! FOR GODS SAKE! I NEED WATER!” John
Many thanks to John for sending this in! All of John’s contributions can be found on a dedicated web page (please click here.)
Loco Yard 
Helo, lovely folks, its me again, that old footplate geezer that gabs historical (or should that be histerical),, anyway, in 1956, i was” on loan” to 1 b. (yes thats right folks, the mighty CAMDEN loco shed, that worked the “fliers” out of euston….One memmorable night, i fired for royal train driver Bill Starvis, on the “Northern Irishman”…That night i must have shovelled ten tons of coal into the white hot maws of 6119, (a scot) !….so you see folks , thats why i sometimes go histerical!,,john.
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