Nobody wants to skite - well, not for more than a column - but I must tell you boys - in fact, I insist on telling you - that I have just returned from :-

Riding at speed between Paekakariki and Palmerston North on one of the two latest locomotives put into service Ka 958, an oil burner, built this year, fitted with Baker valve gear and roller bearings on every axle and connecting rod.

Few people ever get on an express locomotive at all. As for Ka 958, I was the first passenger ever to ride that beauty’s plates.

Dear, Oh dear how I wish I could get you men round one evening, all with your model trains, to demonstrate how we went up the bank out of Otaki at just on 50, with a 500 ton train behind us, how we went up that bank, with my now firm cobbers, Jack Larsen, the fireman turning on the oil full blast, and Harry Barker, the driver, at the regulator; and the 145 tons of the Ka thumping and rolling under the fierce pressure of steam.

Taking the Tablet.

I could tell you boys something. For instance I will never feel the same way towards Otaki again, not since positively sadistic exultation of thundering towards the platform there, with the engine steaming hard, and Jack Larsen fixing up the automatic gear to take the tablet at speed.

Did we miss it ? Not on your life. We caught it fair in the middle of the circle, and hung it on the front of the boiler like a trophy. We left them a tablet at the same moment – disdainfully, like kiss your hand.

We were half a mile away before they touched it.

One felt there should have been a burst of applause from the figures on the station platform. Sometimes we got notes tucked in behind the tablet – crossings to be made here, and timings there. We were on a fast, tight schedule. Harry Barker filed the notes on a clip on the boiler.

Real Camaraderie

Before climbing on to the Ka, I wondered whether it would be wiser to call the driver Sir, or just Mr. Baker. My pass was signed by the Chief Mechanical Engineer but, even so, the driver still had the authority to turn me down if he wanted to.

When we finally shook hands at Palmerston North we said, or implied something like this :- "By gosh, Harry, it’s been a pleasure to ride with you." - "Look here, Alf, it’s been great to have you with us."

That’s the sort of masculine camaraderie that exists between us railway men at heart, professional and amateur. Women can’t fathom it. That’s why a man gets lonely with his model train when the boys are grown up.

As refreshment – room attendants, when we get together, the women are first – class, but as for their handling the locomotive, no sir.

When the engine – pass arrived, my typewriter became a teleprinter. Instantly I dispatched one of those crisp messages used in the service. Addressed to the wife, it read: " Ka o.k. for A.K. " She couldn’t make head nor tail of it, so there you are now.

Intent On The Job

In the cab of an express engine, we men don’t talk, we’re too intent on the job, watching the line ahead, the 200-lb. steam pressure, the oiling systems, and the oil – fuel and water gauges. Heaven knows, we carried enough – 1600 gallons of oil and 5000 gallons of water.

Twice on the trip, Jack Larsen took from the tender a metal funnel four feet long, and through it, into the inferno of the fire - box, poured a full bucket of sand. Seized by the blast of the exhaust, when the engine is steaming heavily, the sand is whisked through the tubes. It cleanses them of carbon and is exploded out through the funnel.

The official pass to an express engine says : " The attention of the driver and fireman must not be diverted from their duties on any account whatever."

Always On The Move

Only a criminal lunatic would do that. One keeps pretty quiet when the engine is under steam. The tender is not built in to the locomotive, but coupled close up. It sways and bucks independently of the engine’s movements, keeping the footplate constantly on the move. The iron underfoot gets hot. Once we hosed it down and steam rose in the cab.

Any depression in the track is magnified when 145 tons is hurled over it. What the impact of that weight is on a bridge one dare not calculate. One must ride a Ka to realise how closely the branches of the service are dependent on one another. The notes in the tablet, the servicing of the track, the signals and crossings all bring this inter-relationship under urgent notice.

A Rhythmic Beat

From the cab of a Ka, you may look out at the long boiler forging ahead and the heavy compound cylinders. You may, too, with Kipling’s McAndrew, "see predestination in the stride of yon connecting rod." But no matter what you see, you will most certainly feel the heavy pulsation of a powerful engine and a swaying and pounding in a rhythmic beat.

That beat says different things to different people, but to me, who shared Jack Larsen’s seat, it seemed to say something that may appropriately be headed :-

Fireman Jack

As a general rule, the temperature’s cool.
The fireman knows the trick.
"Just sit in this seat; you won’t feel the heat,"
Rackety, clackety, click.

Leaping flames from the oil cause the water to boil.
Blast makes the furnaces roar,
But he’s not such a fool, when using oil-fuel,
As to open the fire-box door.

On a coal-fired run, he’d shove’ a ton,
Rackety, clackety, click,
But now on long stages, he’ll force up the gauges,
With jets on an oil-burner slick.

To the shovel and slice, he’d never go twice,
Rackety, clackety, click,
Non-stop on his "K.," he swings on his way,
Making the tablets flick.