Cut off in his prime Main line steam driver GORDON HODGSON was within weeks of completing 60 proud years on the footplate - but in July last year he failed the medical - and in an instant, his career was over. Here he tells DAVID WILCOCK of the despair he felt at that moment, and reflects on the highs and lows of nearly six decades of ‘marriage’ to the railways. 84 • Issue 467 • May 19 - JUNE 15 2017
GORDON HODGSON - PART ONE For almost 40 years, since the 1978 revival of main line steam in the North West, Carlisle engineman Gordon Hodgson has been one of the stand-out names in the ‘top link’ of men who drive and fire our steam charter trains, week in, week out. A proud and articulate professional who began his apprenticeship as a fireman on the Waverley Route as long ago as 1957, Gordon’s ‘oneness’ with a locomotive and his predilection for ‘driving to the full’ has been a trademark long acknowledged by footplate colleagues, and one certainly appreciated by enthusiasts. At just 5ft 6in in his stockinged feet, there have long been jokes and banter among footplate colleagues about him needing a stepladder to get the regulator handle down from the roof, but Gordon’s record speaks for itself: holder of the ‘Blue Riband’ for the fastest run to Ais Gill summit with a Class 7 engine, fastest recorded time between Carlisle and Shap summit with 12 coaches, the highest sustained power output (2,900bhp) up Beattock (all, coincidentally, with the ‘A2’ class ‘Pacific’ No. 60532 Blue Peter) and many more besides. Locomotive fitness and efficiency may be variables, but the name Gordon Hodgson on ‘A4’ Union of South Africa at Hellifield on March 30 2013. EDDIE BOBROWSKI I came back home from the medical, and I’m not ashamed to admit it, I had a good old cry ‘G. Hodgson’ on a steam crewing notice has been the nearest you could get to a guarantee of exhilarating, polished performance. As he says: “There’s a fine margin between using and abusing an engine, but for me, express locomotives should always be driven at full regulator, to get the maximum benefit out of superheat.” In July last year though, Gordon’s name suddenly disappeared from West Coast Railways’ crewing roster. There were no reports to say he had been ill - and retirement for a man so passionate about steam and so staunchly wedded to the footplate was quite unthinkable. He was simply there one minute, and gone the next. Some days later, the grapevine brought the news that Gordon, then 77, had failed his six-monthly medical - on his hearing. His footplate career - just six months short of 60 years - was suddenly at an end. That he was still as fit as a flea, demonstrated the mental agility of men half his age, and walked England’s highest fells on his days off, counted for nothing. Devastated Friends and followers met the news of Gordon’s enforced retirement with sadness and sympathy, but to the man himself, it was a devastating, lifechanging thunderbolt. It felt as though the bottom had fallen out of his entire world. “I came back home from the medical, and I’m not ashamed to admit it, I had a good old cry,” he admitted when I met him at his Carlisle home a few weeks ago. “It wasn’t how I’d expected to retire from the railway. I was so hoping to get that 60 years in, at least. “I always knew that the hearing in my right ear wasn’t as good as in my left, but I never had any fears or qualms about the medical. The doctors used to say to me that considering the environment I’d been working in - on a noisy footplate over so many years - my hearing was generally better than might be expected. “The practical test involved hearing someone speaking at a certain distance away, and checking that I could use radios and telephones without any difficulty. I’ve got a hearing aid, and that’s fine when I’m working a diesel - but it was useless on a steam engine because there’s so much ‘percussion’ and echo in the receiver that it’s difficult to differentiate one noise from another. Everything was being drowned out. “I asked the doctor if I could take the test again - but he said no. He was sorry, but he had to draw the line somewhere. I was devastated. I’d expected to pass the practical test again - but as the doctor said, if anything happened as a result of my hearing - any incident - it would come back on him, and he would be out of a job. “During previous medicals, some of the doctors had asked me how long I intended to continue on the footplate. I always said that I’d carry on for as long as I still felt capable, confident and happy doing it - but the moment I felt uncomfortable doing it, I’d stop. I never reached that stage. “One of the biggest disappointments was losing the last year on the Settle line, following the major landslip in the Eden Gorge near Armathwaite, in February last year. Sixty or seventy per cent of my work was on the Settle & Carlisle. It hardly looks like a shed about to close, but this was Carlisle Canal, taken from the coaling stage on the last weekend before the locomotives were moved to Kingmoor on June 10 1963. The fulsome variety of engines in steam includes ‘A4’ No. 60012 Commonwealth of Australia, ‘A3’ No. 60100 Spearmint, ‘V2’ No. 60816, ‘B1’ No. 61099 and, just visible out of steam on the far road of the straight shed, ‘Britannia’ No. 70020 Mercury. Also identifiable in the frame are ‘Black Five’ No. 45195 and Fairburn 2-6-4T No. 42187. Peter J. Robinson Issue 467 • MAY 19 - JUNE 15 2017 • 85
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