This was the usual sort of carry-on. I'd seen an excursionist miss his train back from Blackpool Central because he was monkeying about with a 'Try Your Weight' machine. Reuben was frowning at them slowly, while Lowther took the chance to leap down from one compartment and belt along to another, like a little black bomb. The two blokes at the machine were called back by some of their pals on the train: 'Give over, you silly buggers!'

They climbed up again; Reuben waved his flag, and climbed into his guard's compartment. Clive opened the cylinder cocks and pulled the regulator not more than a quarter of an inch. The exhaust beats began, each one a wrench at first.

'That cream-biscuit machine doesn't work, does it?' I shouted over to Clive as we rolled away.

'Shouldn't do,' he called back, frowning. 'Never has done so far.'

And we stood there grinning as the steam surrounded us.

Chapter Two

We came out from under the platform glass and the gleam on the regulator doubled all in a moment.

In winter in Halifax, the smoke and sky were one, but on a good day in summer the sky was the sky and the smoke was the smoke – and every day was a good day for weather in that summer of 1905.

We crawled down the bank from the Joint. Below, and sometimes to the side of us, and sometimes going over our heads on bridges, was the Halifax Branch Canal. The light was coming and going as we clattered along that groove, under the towering mill walls. Then it went clean out as we rumbled through Milner Royd Tunnel, with all the strange screams of the excursionists.

We came out of that tunnel with the sun full on us, and Clive began notching us up while pushing his hair back. 'Special train!' he yelled, as the first kick of speed came.

Well, all our trains were special trains.



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