I started my role as engine cleaner at the Motive Power Depot, Redhill, Surrey. The depot consisted of the
I started my role as engine cleaner at the Motive Power Depot, Redhill, Surrey. The depot consisted of the shed/ I think there were 5 lines leading to buffer stops in the shed. All of these lines were over “Pits” allowing access to under the engines for examination and maintenance.
Leaving the shed these lines narrowed down to just 1 where engines were then signalled onto the main line. One side of the shed you accessed the store and the engineers workshop and on the other side was the Shed Masters office and a very welcome canteen. Outside the shed there were tracks to the turntable and cleaning pits where fire boxes were de-clinked and smoke boxes emptied. Also large water pumps were available here for filling up. A steep track by the side of the cleaning pit was where coal wagons were shunted and coal was downloaded onto the engines Another building outside of the shed hosted the Foremans Office, the Driver and Firemans Mess and Labourers Mess (my home for 6 months + the canteen of course). I soon learned that cleaning engines here was a thing of the past. At least it was when I started. You could not become a fireman until you were 16 years of age. So with no cleaning of engines, what did I do? Well I was a bit of a dogs body really. Taking/collecting letters and packages /from the station, helping in the stores, cleaning the mess room, making the tea, sometimes even going into Town to collect something for the Foreman. At times though there was nothing to do. It was boring at times, especially in wet weather. Bored with time on your hands and no Health and Safety at Work Act in place is a combination leading to DANGER.
Wet day, nothing to do and bored. Have you heard of toy guns that you inserted a roll of “caps” into. Press the trigger and “BANG”. Well there was another way of making a BANG. If you took an old fashioned key. You know, hollow tube type that fitted into a key hole and only released the lock if the impressions matched. You’ve got it. Well, if you scraped the red head of a Swan Vestas match and pushed it into the hollow tube of a key, then pushed a metal nail into the key and compressed the red powder, you could then, using a piece of string attached to the key, swing the key onto a solid surface forcing the nail into the key, and BANG. Thinking about this I went to the canteen and purchased a box of Swan Vestas matches. I then went to the store room and picked up 2 large engine bolts and 1 large matching nut. I say they were big. you couldn’t buy nuts and bolts that big from B&Q. With the nut screwed partially onto one of the bolts I spent the whole morning scratching the heads of the matches and putting the powder into the nut. On completion I screwed the other bolt onto the nut and compressed the powder.
Lunchtime and I was ready to launch my surprise. The mess room was full. I stood on the bench and dropped the bolts. Guess what. 
. One bolt stripped its thread, launched into the wall and rebounded to the other wall. It only just missed a colleagues head. He was lucky. So was I. It could have killed him. I don’t believe that I could have lived with that on my conscience for the rest of my life.
Not me this time, but one day I was climbing up onto the footplate of an engine just as I witnessed a fireman hammer a nail into a detonator. My heart missed a beat. It didn’t explode thank goodness. He told me as long as you knew where to pierce it you were OK. How did he find out?. Anyway he emptied the powder into a piece of newspaper and took it into a well occupied mess room. He put it on the draining board and lit it. No bang this time, just POOOF 
. Smoke bellowed up to the ceiling, then down into the room. Room evacuated, lunch ruined. I heard of many such cases, particularly with misuse of detonators. P-way huts having detonators thrown down chimneys onto a live fire whilst occupants were having a lunch hour nap. It all stopped thank goodness. Thanks to the introduction of the Health and Safety at Works Act.
Law and experience. Don’t do it.
Well that’s it for this blog. I’ll finish of my cleaning role in my next blog. It nearly finished my career on the railway. I was nearly dismissed (sacked).
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