My new job was essentially being the eyes and ears of Nelson Street as far as locomotive hauled coaching stock was concerned. I was expected to be out and about all the time, riding trains, visiting depots and attending incidents. My very first job involved inspecting and ride testing a train on the London to Sheffield services. I quickly realized that in order to understand bad riding vehicles one had to have very good route knowledge as there were locations where all trains rode badly due to the track condition. The art was to know where normal trains rode well and a bad rider would not, of course a bad rider would experience degraded performance on the bad track sections but that was usually much harder to detect. We had a 'ride meter', which was a big heavy box and required close attention (and which also demanded even better route knowledge) that expressed the accelerations into a ride index. With experience the ride index could be determined without the box. As I had a footplate pass I made a point of riding locomotives whenever possible so that I could learn the routes, and the areas of poor track. Sometimes jobs seemed pointless, one day I was detailed to sit through an overhead line test with test car 'Mentor', which involved testing every bit of over head line in the Birmingham area, if one desired to traverse unusual trackage, excellent, otherwise rather dull.

It had been decided that newly built rolling stock could not be placed into service until they had completed 1,500 miles of running. A programme of testing based on Crewe Carriage Shed had been established, with a run to Stonebridge Park London and back four days a week plus one day of static testing in the shed. All kinds of faults were discovered and as far as possible fixed by the small testing team under my direction, otherwise they were sent back to Derby for repair. Occasionally workmen would come on site to effect repairs, or see the problem that only manifested itself during service. The cars were often parked at the south end of Basford Hall sidings some two miles distant from Crewe Station, and we used to get a ride there on the test loco, so they were amazed to be ushered into an electric locomotive cab and whisked off to the sidings to avoid a forty-five minute walk. Occasionally incidents occurred, one time we pulled the ohl down south of Tamworth (it had been damaged by the previous train, we made it much worse), another time when we had a class 47 diesel it suffered a generator flashover near Weedon, and had to be pushed to Bletchley. For a long time we were allocated the experimental class 87 locomotive 87101, which was banned between Stafford and Rugby on the Trent Valley line, so we had to trundle along the Stour Valley, usually, but not always, bypassing Wolverhampton and Birmingham New Street.

Not long after I was in the post I was called to a meeting to review the maintenance requirements for the Mark 3 coaching stock. The design office was explaining how the under vehicle modules had doors that could be opened outwards to allow access, when we pointed out that due to physical obstructions that was not possible and that the doors had to open inwards, which would block access to the components behind them. Despite being modified the doors were still labelled as access points for the now inaccessible items. One thing we did not detect, until we started to notice damage on vehicles, was that the Mark 3s were hitting things like platform copings and an emergency meeting was called where it emerged that the vehicles were designed to meet the current C3 loading gauge to which the London Midland Region Chief Civil Engineer said 'unfortunately George Stephenson didn't use that drawing when he built the railway.' Consequently we were banned from using many lines and a great deal of money was spent cutting back platform edges. The separation of design from operation is not always a good idea.

The mid 1970s saw a softening of official attitudes towards steam locomotives running over BR lines, with excursions over selected lines sanctioned, and some of the preserved railways wanted to use their own carriages. The BRB decided that this was allowable, provided that the coaches were inspected and tested by an approved inspector. Consequently I became a regular visitor to the various railways involved, and as we required a locomotive for the tests I had some enjoyable days, always being treated very well (naturally) and I was invited on some of the excursions.

With the end of steam it became obvious that the location of the National Railway Museum in a former London Bus Garage was hardly practical and the former motive power depot at York was selected to be the new location. In those days it was unthinkable for railway equipment to be moved by road, so a series of special trains were run on Saturdays from Stewarts Lane to York. I was detailed to escort the train from there to Rotherham, where the Eastern Region staff would take over. Apart from being a long day it was pretty routine, with stops every few miles to check for overheated bearings and a steady 25 mph trip for about 175 miles with about ten hours scheduled. The axles on one of the steam locomotives ran hot very quickly and had to be left at Cricklewood, but the other fun thing was the train with Queen Victoria's Saloon, I insisted on riding in it to check it was good, 'No test no go' was my line. It was super quiet and rode beautifully. The last trip was the fun and games trip, it was the unrestored equipment that had been stored in the former Pullman workshops at Preston Park. The Southern Region had passed them as fit to run, and I took them over at Cricklewood. We were limited to 15 mph and as they were all in a poor state I had to travel on the locomotive. I soon found that several axlebox bearings were running warm so, armed with a large oiler and waste, I treated them at each stop. All this took time and we were soon running late, so much so that by the time we reached Toton we had lost our crew and had to wait several hours. At least I had the foresight to bring tea and powdered milk. However as soon as we got going again the axleboxes started to overheat. Upon reaching the last stop in Chesterfield the driver turned to me.

"If we don't get a move on we will be stuck at Rotherham till about 09.00 tomorrow," he said.

At that point I made an executive decision. "How fast would we have to go to catch the last train?" I asked.

"Forty-five mph," he replied.

"OK, go for it," I said.

I went and sat in the back cab and watched the first vehicle, an ex LNWR Oerlikon EMU, bouncing and rocking around as we roared through the night.

"What have I done?" I said to myself.

We made Rotherham in good time and all bearings were cool, 15 mph was simply too slow for a good oil wedge to build up. I found out later that the LNWR EMU had the traction motors meshed and no-one had oiled the motor bearings!

One night, in June 1975, the driver on a northbound overnight sleeping car train passed an unlit warning sign for the temporary speed limit at Nuneaton, which was in place due to the track remodeling. We had passed through the area the day before on our test train and commented that the temporary track work was pretty rough. The sleeping car train derailed and piled up at the south end of the station, as well as under a road bridge. The leading vehicles were demolished but as most people were asleep in their berths the death toll was relatively small. I was there for two days assisting and was authorized to decide which vehicles could be condemned on the spot. This was the most serious accident that I ever attended.

Sleeping car train passengers are always unhappy when they are woken in the middle of the night by jolts. The introduction of air braked locomotives hauling vacuum braked trains caused issues, as the vacuum brakes were controlled via a relay valve which often caused an imbalance between the timing of the locomotive brakes versus the train brakes. Another issue was created when drivers would use the straight air brake just before stopping in order to ease the couplings prior to a locomotive change. As an aside, years later, when I lived in Turkey, I often took the night sleeping car train between Ankara and Istanbul. This train always changed drivers at Eskisehir, often one portion of the journey was smooth and the other wildly jerky, entirely due to the way the driver used the brakes. In the later 1970s the trouble recurred but did not seem to be related to the relay valve. One passenger was thrown from the top bunk, breaking her wrist, so it was decided that I would investigate. I made several trips from London to Inverness and back, noting when the jerks would occur. We replaced the brake cylinders on the train as we had noted that some wheels were cool on arrival, which suggested unequal braking occurred, but this only produced a marginal improvement. Further testing was clearly required, so the BRB was requested to assist after replacing the buffing and draw springs as well as rechecking the brake cylinders. The train was fully instrumented and a special test train ran for several days based at Carlisle between Crewe and Perth. Considerable improvement resulted, and instructions were issued to renew the buff/draw springs at each overhaul.

The batteries on the Mark 3 coaches, which provided back up lighting and ventilation when the electric train heat (ETH) was unavailable, were different to previous builds. They were 110v rather than the 24v of the earlier cars, which were themselves based on a design going back to the 1900's. The Mark 1 batteries were large and heavy and were characterized by a large plate area as well as the ability to be deeply discharged. The Mark 3's were thoroughly modern, smaller, and lighter as well as being almost totally inaccessible. They quickly started to fail, and to compound the issues the control system needed power to restart the Motor Alternator (MA) set when the ETH supply was reconnected. The result was that if the battery discharged it would not be able to recharge itself. A further wrinkle was that when electrically hauled the ETH would automatically turn off when the locomotive went through a neutral section of overhead wires. If an MA set failed to restart, it would take about 30 to 40 minutes for the batteries to discharge sufficiently to stop ventilating the coach and the lights would go out. When this happened the heat build up on a hot day would become unbearable. An ad hoc scheme was developed for the commissioning group to take sets of discharged batteries out of Mark 3s and recharge them, as well as replace failed cells. It was like painting the Forth Bridge, a never ending task! The final solution was a redesign of the batteries, but I felt it was really the result of the BRB design department being out of touch with the reality of the operational railway (see the mention of gauge clearance and module doors above. A lot of time was spent changing batteries and of course we had to wear protective clothing, which consisted of highly fashionable rubber boots, gloves, a large apron, and goggles. One day I was told that a stores inspector was visiting and wanted to meet me, but when I went into the stores he started shouting to me that workmen were not allowed inside the stores. However his anger turned to embarrassment when I was introduced.

One Friday afternoon, while I was at Crewe working on Mark 3 batteries, I got a call to go Stoke to meet the Divisional Staff as a Mark 3 had been detached at Lichfield the night before due to a brake problem. On arrival we found three vehicles standing in the sidings adjacent to the Rom River Reinforcing Works. The crew had been unable to split the defective vehicle from the others and upon examination we discovered severe damage to a trailing axlebox which was fractured. As a result of the fracture the various links and components were also damaged, and some parts missing. The local staff enquired where exactly the incident had occurred and it was established that the trouble had occurred at Atherston some 10 miles south of Lichfield. We headed to Atherstone to ask the signalman if there was any report of the incident and he advised that it had happened at the crossovers in front of his signal box. We went onto the track to inspect and were horrified to discover considerable track damage as the broken part of the axlebox had been dragging on the track, having been forced between the switchblade and stock rail on a trailing point. It had then bounced over the following facing switch before it bounced and demolished part of an AWS magnet before it had bounced up again, disconnecting the brake pipes and stopping the train. There was no sign of the missing spring so we set off down the main line, one of us keeping a careful lookout for trains with the other two looking for the spring. After about three miles we found the spring and recorded the location. Meanwhile the fast line had been closed to traffic while the Permanent Way (PW) staff attended to the damage. I headed back to Derby while the local staff arranged for the two undamaged vehicles to be removed and the defective vehicle to be red carded. The next day I was asked to drive my personal vehicle to Lichfield, along with the Carriage Engineer, taking a replacement axlebox to meet a team from Stoke. Luckily the millwright at Rom River was happy to help and lent us both tools and manpower, so that we could replace the axlebox. A couple of days later with the remaining parts replaced, a special train was arranged to collect the coach and take it to the Carriage Works in Derby. It was the only time that I traveled over the chord between the South Staffordshire line and the Trent Valley line at Lichfield. On a side note I had had to spend a few minutes in the signal box at Lichfield Trent Valley, it was a brick base with a wooden upper floor that swayed from side to side as a train passed, when two trains passed simultaneously it was like a ship in a rough sea. After the investigation It was found that the machining of the axlebox had caused stress raisers that led to fatigue cracking. I spent several nights lying on my back under Mark 3 axleboxes cleaning and checking for cracks, a very unpleasant task in the rain! A massive program of replacement was implemented, followed by a redesign, that led to a further fleet renewal.

Whenever test trains ran involving new schedules and / or the Research Department I would have to attend. These were normally easy jobs, but usually entailed long days as one had to be in place in time to perform a check to make sure everything was in good condition. On one run to Glasgow with the London Midland General Manager on board we were stopped by a signal failure. We were stationary for about 20 seconds and the guard wryly commented that every train should have a GM on board.

In July 1978 there was a fire in a sleeping car on the Western Region and consequently I was dispatched to do a campaign check of the drop lights in sleeping car compartments. As they were rarely opened, many were very stiff and it was a better workout than at the gym. The stiff drop lights had to be eased open and WD40 seemed to do the trick.

Towards the end of my career in Nelson Street the Coaching Stock Manager was taken ill and I was recalled to the office, clearly bureaucracy was more important than the running railway. It was quite a shock to the system to be suddenly back in the offices, only this time I was in Room 6, which was the lair of the section managers. I was still expected to perform the various specialist jobs as well so I was able to escape from time to time. One amusing incident involved the former LNER Royal train. Both the King's and Queen's saloons were declared surplus and one was slated for the National Railway Museum, with the other for Bressingham. Before the handover I had to go to Wolverton Works to meet everyone. The saloons were magnificent, although one had been painted "duck egg blue" over all the exquisite marquetry, and this one was destined for Bressingham. As part of my inspection I asked for the ultrasonic axle inspection report and the works manager was clearly annoyed when it emerged that the axles had not been inspected. Worse was to follow as it turned out that the coach destined for the NRM had a defective axle and could not travel by rail, so the destinations of the two coaches were exchanged.

Another special job was handing over two restored Pullman Cars to the NRM, except that the handover was in the middle of Stonebridge Park sidings. This was a very unusual place to do so, and resulted in a long ride for the NRM's rider, all without a working toilet.

Around this time business man Jim Sherwood, founder of Sea Containers, was fulfilling his dream of recreating the Orient Express, which involved British Pullman Cars run through on the train ferries all the way to Venice. He had acquired some 'basket case' cars and one 'Agatha' was being worked on at Steamtown in Carnforth. It was being done by an enthusiastic metalworker who had no concept of the integral construction (ie no separate load bearing underframe) and so had cut away large sections, thereby causing the vehicle to sag. I inspected it and made several rather strong comments with the result that Sea Containers offered me a job to supervise the repairs, at a very much enhanced salary. Coupled with the prospect of returning to being a cog in the bureaucracy, and realizing that my chances of further promotion were almost nothing as all higher management positions were being reserved for University graduates, no matter their abilities, I accepted. On reflection I am sure that I would have gone further up the management ladder as most of my contemporaries did after it became clear that a university degree was not everything the railways thought it was. But the career that the decision lead to was almost certainly more interesting and certainly gave me greater responsibilities.