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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